Ripper (51 page)

Farbeaux smiled and looked at Sarah and back again to Mendenhall. He could see Will was angry about Colonel Collins not being here, and possibly being dead. Still Henri could not resist. He looked back at Gloria who was anxiously awaiting Will to tell her to come the rest of the way up the stairs. Farbeaux’s smile broadened as he
glanced back at the young black man.

“It’s highly possible she is vulnerable, Lieutenant Mendenhall, perhaps as much as Dr. Bannister is at the moment.”

Will got angry for the briefest of seconds, and his eyes went to Gloria as she looked up at him and smiled once more. The air was let loose from his lungs like a punctured tire. His shoulders slumped as he realized the Frenchman was right in
his assessment. He was no better than the colonel and he knew it. He just nodded his head.

Farbeaux returned the nod and lightly slapped Will on the left shoulder.

“It is hell being human sometimes, isn’t it Lieutenant?” Henri again smiled. “But then again if we weren’t, we would end up something like those creatures out there. And I thought I was inhuman at times.”

“You are inhuman,” Will
said and again nodded to the Frenchman. “Well, what do you say we go and get something to fight back with, Colonel?” Will said as he turned to the stairwell door.

“After you,” Henri said looking back at Sarah and winking in the weak lighting.

“Let’s just hope we don’t run into trouble,” Mendenhall said with a confident move to open the door.

He swung the heavy steel door open and his eyes widened
as one of the giants was standing right in front of him. Mendenhall quickly closed the door and threw his body against it just as it was struck with the weight of the beast in the corridor. Farbeaux saw the lieutenant’s predicament and quickly threw his weight behind the effort to keep the abomination at bay.

“Okay, we’re in trouble!” Mendenhall yelled over the roaring outside.

*   *   *

Jack
and Charlie stared into the black abyss where the stairwell had once been. At least three levels of steel landings and steps had been torn free from their mountings by the intelligent creatures they were struggling to survive against. Collins shook his head in utter frustration as he knew they would have to brave the hallway outside and the long curving corridor to get to one of the other three
stairwells that were situated in a semicircle along this particular level.

“Doc, now you wait here while I see if there’s company waiting for us on the other side of this door. Do you understand?”

Frightened to death after he had peered into the darkness far below and seeing the stairs ripped out, Charlie could only manage to nod his head up and down several times.

“Damn it, Doc. I asked if
you understood,” Jack barked angrily and then immediately regretted it.

“Yes … Colonel,” Ellenshaw finally managed.

“Alright, do as I say and maybe I’ll let you have a hand grenade,” Jack said with a wicked twist of his lips, knowing he would never give Crazy Charlie one of the small explosive devices, one that he could pull the pin on and hold until it went off in his hand. But the mere offer
worked on the old hippie turned soldier wannabe.

Collins turned to the door, took a deep breath, and then opened it slowly. The hallway as far as he could see left and right seemed to be clear. The emergency lighting was still functioning, meaning that the creatures more than likely had not visited this level. He looked back at the wide-eyed, crazed-haired Charlie who waited without breathing
for Jack to say something.

“Okay, come on, Doc.”

Charlie followed Jack into the curving corridor. He raised the M-14 carbine, careful to aim it away from the colonel’s back as he had numerous times since their journey had begun and been stingingly admonished for it. There were several flashes from the emergency floods likely due to weakened wiring that made the two men pause as they moved down
the seemingly clear hallway. They passed the brand-new nuclear science labs and made sure to duck beneath the broad windows in case there were surprises waiting in Virginia’s laboratories. Collins raised his hand up in the air and Charlie stopped, but not before running into the colonel’s backside. Jack looked back and shook his head.

“Wipe your glasses off, Doc; they’re all fogged up.”

Ellenshaw
did as he was told, surprised when he placed the thick glasses back on at how he had seen anything before he was told to clean them.

Just as Jack started to move forward again the radio at his side sent a message through to his earpiece. Collins was instantly ashamed that he had actually jumped at the suddenness of the noise, which in turn made Ellenshaw yelp. Collins hissed for the hundredth
time in the last thirty minutes. He quickly placed a finger to his lips, making sure Charlie remained quiet, but still ashamed for acting just as frightened and actually showing it. The answer Jack knew was to blame Charlie … it made him feel better.

“Compton to Colonel Collins.” Jack tried to return the call, but Niles jumped in too quickly, cutting him off. “Compton to Colonel Collins, come
in.”

At that very moment Charlie reached out and took Jack by the arm, tilting his head to their rear. Collins looked and saw nothing, but Ellenshaw pointed to his left ear and tapped it. Jack listened. He heard the sound of heavy breathing, and then something crashed far away but on the same level.

“Damn, we have company on this level, Doc,” he said as he started walking faster toward the large
curve and the stairwell beyond. As they moved away from the sound behind them, Jack reached down and made sure his volume was lowered since he didn’t exactly know how sensitive the soldiers’ hearing was. “Collins to Compton, come in. Over,” he said softly into the microphone poised at the corner of his mouth. “Collins to Compton, over,” he repeated.

Suddenly Ellenshaw saw the colonel jerk as
the voice of Niles came screaming over his earpiece.

“Colonel, listen, I don’t have a lot of time,” Niles said while breathing hard and running. “I have one ugly son of a bitch chasing me. You have to get down to level eighty-four immediately. Those smartass bastards have shut down the cooling pumps for reactors one and two. Do you hear? Level eighty-four, Jack, eighty-four—gotta go!”

Charlie
saw Collins freeze as he heard what Niles had to say. “What is it?” Ellenshaw whispered as he turned when another crashing noise was heard below them.

Collins reached back and grabbed Ellenshaw by the collar, forcing him along the hallway. As they approached the stairwell door, Jack cursed as he heard something back along the corridor start running after them.

“Oh, there’s something coming Colonel,”
Charlie said as his feet were flying down the hallway past Jack like a scared rabbit with the colonel dead on his heels.

The two men finally reached the nearest stairwell door and Jack threw it open. He took one step inside and started to fall. Ellenshaw reached out and caught Jack by his collar, reversing the roles from just moments before. Collins had stepped right off into space. Charlie dropped
the M-14 and tried using both hands to pull Collins back from the abyss as he realized the creatures had torn out the landing and the stairs below it. Collins dangled as the three assault packages slipped from his grip and tumbled end over end into the darkness below. Charlie struggled to keep the colonel in check, but he was quickly losing the battle. Collins finally managed to reach out and
take hold of a twisted piece of metal to arrest his fall and help Ellenshaw, who was far stronger than Jack had ever given him credit for, gain a better handhold on his shirt. Finally he found purchase for his foot on a partially ripped out stair and pushed himself backward. With a final heave both he and Ellenshaw fell backward through the open door. As they both tried to catch their breath, they
heard the pounding of heavy footsteps stop and then the sound of breaking glass as whatever it was crashed through the window into the nuclear sciences labs.

“Thanks, Doc,” Jack said as he gained his feet and pulled Ellenshaw to his. He quickly reached out and grabbed the three remaining assault packages strapped to Charlie’s back. He immediately knew what their only escape could be. He pulled
out several large coils of very thin black nylon rope. It wasn’t thick but had the tensile strength of a thousand pounds. Jack quickly brought out his rapelling ring and attached it to his pants at the waist. Then he repeated the same for Ellenshaw who was staring at him with wider-than-normal befuddled eyes.

“What is this?” Charlie asked with a small whine.

“Have you ever rapelled before Doc?”

“Uh, no,” he said shaking his head even though Jack had already started prying at the elevator doors next to the stairwell.

“Well, suck it up Doc because you’re about to get a crash course,” he said as he finally parted the two doors and looked down the black tube until it vanished forty-two levels below. The draft produced by the empty and powered-down shaft lifted the colonel’s collar as he
watched and listened.

“Suck it up?” Ellenshaw said with panic forcing his eyes now even wider than the thick lenses could account for.

Jack continued to stare into the deep, dark elevator tube. He looked back through the doors when the sounds of crashing and breaking stopped inside the distant laboratories.

“We’re out of time here, Doc.” Jack went to Charlie and quickly threaded the rope through
the tungsten steel ring attached to Charlie’s waist. He could feel Ellenshaw shaking almost uncontrollably as he made the connection. “You have to go first, Charlie. I hate to say it, but if for some reason you fall you won’t take me with you. I have to get to the reactors and start the cooling pumps.” Jack added this last little tidbit to take the sting off of Ellenshaw’s possible, no imminent,
death.

“Reactors?” he said as he watched Jack reach into the tube and find a good solid attach point for the rope. Then he pulled out another coil of black rope and double-knotted the two together, adding the last of the rope from Charlie’s third assault package. “I hope this is enough,” he said as he stood and patted Ellenshaw on the back.

“What do you mean, you
hope
? What if it isn’t?”

Jack
smiled. “Isn’t being a soldier fun Charlie?”

“If I get out of this I am never leaving my lab again.”

Jack quickly reached into the bag and pulled out two pairs of leather gloves, slapping one of them into Ellenshaw’s hand. “Put these on, that rope’s going to get hot.”

“Hot? What do you mean—”

“Okay, sling that weapon, no, no, sling it to your back. If it’s in the front it’ll take your head
off when … when you land. Now, take your left hand and hold the rope here. Then bring your left to your back and take hold of it there just above your spine. You control the speed of your descent by tightening and loosening your grip at your spine. Do you understand?”

“Uh, no, not—”

“Good, now lean out backward with a firm grip … that’s it, just lean out over the tube. Balance yourself Charlie
and hold both rope points tightly,” Jack said as he heard another crash of glass, this time outward into the hallway close by. “I hate to be a little wimp here, Doc, but something wicked this way comes. Hang on,” he said as he kicked Ellenshaw’s feet away from the edge of the elevator doors.

Jack was shocked when Charlie disappeared in a split-second. All he saw was the last of Charlie’s white
hair as it vanished into the darkness below just as the colonel’s heart fell through his chest. He knew he had just basically murdered Ellenshaw. He quickly came to his senses.

“Tighten your grip damn it!” Jack screamed fast realizing he had just alerted the thing in back of them to exactly where he was. He leaned into the tube and tried to see Ellenshaw’s bent and broken body anywhere far below.
“Doc!”

“Wahoo, that was a rush!” came Ellenshaw’s voice from deep inside the tube. The statement echoed six times before it vanished.

“Damn!” Jack said as he attached his own rope. “Go ahead, Doc, get moving and make it fast. Bizzaro superman is coming.” He had to smile when he heard Ellenshaw zip farther down the tube into the black hole where there was once nothing but good people, and now
was filled with monsters. “Good boy Charlie.”

Collins slung three weapons, the shotgun, the Ingram, and an M-14 carbine over his shoulder, and then positioned himself facing away from the tube just as the creature hunting them came around the bend in the corridor. Their eyes locked and the creature exposed its teeth, which were wide and long and were showing through a surprised but very pleased
grinning mouth. The abnormal eyes shown in the semidark like those of a hunting cat. It shook its head at the easy prey ahead of it and charged.

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t wait around dickhead,” Jack said as he pushed off into the great abyss of the tube just as the beast roared in anger and defeat.

*   *   *

As the six men and women scrambled down the stairs, it was Mendenhall who realized
after half an hour that he was not hearing the sound of pursuit from the creature that had surprised him in the doorway. He held his hand up and the others stopped their descent. Sarah reached around Henri and felt the blood flowing pretty freely.

“Will, the colonel’s wounds have opened up,” she said, trying not to shout.

Denise Gilliam raised the Frenchman’s lab coat and surgical blouse. She
shook her head. “Damn it, it’s like he wasn’t stitched up at all.” She looked up at Farbeaux and shook her head, knowing he would have a hard time seeing her disapproval in the darkness of the stairwell. “You stupid Frenchman; why didn’t you say something?”

“Well, Doctor, I didn’t really want to stop and receive any more wounds. That chap in the doorway up there didn’t look like the type that
would pause for a wounded man. I don’t think mercy to the fallen is one of their strong suits.”

“Good point,” Sarah said, finally smiling up at him.

“Okay, if he dies, it may be a better death than what’s waiting for us,” Will said as he turned and faced his charges. “Dr. Pollock, we’re on sixty-one. The first vault enclosures are here. Is there anything we can use on this level to help us?”