The Stranger (33 page)

Fifty-two

The main bunker looked far bigger than the little brother annex where Michaela and I had stayed. Room after room lined the corridor. Storerooms. Pump rooms. Bedrooms. Mess rooms. Rooms with air-conditioning plants. Rooms full of computer terminals. The place was the size of a battleship. Corridors ran off at tangents. Stairwells led to higher levels. Elevators plunged to unknown depths.

“Where’d we go?” Tony called as he snapped a fresh magazine into the machine gun.

“I don’t know . . . We’ll have to go through all the rooms one by one.” I kicked open a door to reveal a sick bay. Spent hypos covered the floor. This must be one of Phoenix’s little joy cabins, where he sent himself on cosmic journeys at the point of a needle. With narc habits like that it’s a wonder the guy survived.

A hornet ran screeching from a corridor, waving an iron bar with such ferocity it flashed with blue sparks every time it struck the wall. I dropped him with a single rifle shot to the gut.

More hornets spilled from a side corridor. Tony’s gun clattered. Men and women went tumbling to the ground.

“Greg, there are hundreds of rooms here. I don’t think we’re gonna have time to search them all.” Zak blasted a pair of hornets with a single shotgun shell.

Tony pumped a tracer into the swarming bodies. “Hey, the bad guys are coming thick and fast.”

No sooner had he said that than Phoenix’s voice boomed in the confined space. “Move into the corridor to your right.”

“Yeah,” I yelled. “As if we should trust you!”

The voice echoed. “You can’t shoot them all, Valdiva. There are hundreds down here!”

“And who’s to say you’re not inviting us to run into their open arms?”

“Trust me, Valdiva.”

“Yeah, like hell I will.”

From a doorway a heavyset man flung himself on Tony. He fell with the man straddling him. The monster put a pair of huge hands around Tony’s throat and began to squeeze. I used the rifle butt to crush the guy’s skull. He crumpled like an empty sack.

“Come on,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here. There are too many.”

No understatement. Around fifty hornets surged along the corridor we’d just run through. Ahead, three corridors ran away into the distance.

“Come on, Tony. Get up.” Zak pointed the twelve gauge in the direction of the surging mob. “You can’t lay there all day.”

Tony grimaced. “Looks as if I will. The big ape’s gone and busted my leg.”

I glanced down to see Tony gripping his shin. His face was tight with pain.

“Come on, buddy. You’ve got to stand up.”

Tony shook his head. “It’s broken. . . .” He pulled the machine gun toward him. “I’ll stay here and cover you.”

“No fucking way . . . Zak, grab him by the collar and drag him.”

“Which way?”

“I don’t think it matters; just move as fast as you can. Go!”

The mob started to run. There were so many hornets, the sound of their feet came like pounding drums. I fired the rifle until the magazine was empty, dropping the leading bad guys. Some behind tripped over the fallen bodies. But I wasn’t stopping them all. I glanced back to see that Zak had grabbed Tony by the collar and dragged him into a sitting position farther along the corridor. I followed. “Not that way. That’s where Phoenix told us to go. If I know him it’ll be a trap.”

“Where, then?” A desperate note sounded in Zak’s voice. “Where the hell do we go?”

The pounding grew louder as the hornets ran at us. Now they were maybe thirty yards away. I drew a handgun. In a strangely dislocated way I aimed and fired. I felt calm. I knew I’d simply aim and fire one round after another until the hornets overran us.

I aimed at a guy with a red beard.
Bang.
He went down with a hole through his cheekbone. Then I focused on a wiry-haired man with a hooked nose.
Bang.
Clutching his stomach as the bullet tore his liver, he did a kind of forward somersault roll. Immediately the mob charged over him. If the bullet doesn’t kill him those crushing feet will, I told myself in a cool way that seemed as remote from this as if I was watching TV.
Bang.
A woman with black jagged teeth was next. The bullet popped her eye like a soap bubble.
Bang.
Another guy went down with blood pouring from his mouth.

Scrreee!

I stood and stared at what happened next without any real understanding. I was going to die. That’s all I knew. But suddenly a steel gate slid across the passageway, blocking it from floor to ceiling. A second later the mob slammed into it, hands thrusting through the bars, trying to reach me. I stood for a moment before the truth wormed its way into my head. They’d been stopped dead. For now we were safe. I glanced back to see Tony lying there, supporting himself on one elbow, and Zak standing with his mouth hanging open. It took a moment for them to realize, too, that the mob couldn’t reach us.

I turned to them. “I don’t know how long that’s gonna last. Tony, grit your teeth.”

After handing Zak the rifle I picked up Tony and hoisted him across my shoulder. I heard him gasp with pain. Now I could see the kink in his shin where the bone had snapped. “Zak, keep moving. If you see any-thing blast it.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

I walked hard with Zak covering me. Tony’s weight nearly broke my goddam back, but I wasn’t putting him down yet. I wouldn’t leave him to those monsters. We’d walked perhaps twenty seconds when we passed through a set of swinging doors. I looked down because something funny had happened to the floor. I panted hard, trying to get the oxygen to my lungs, as I stared at the floor . . . That was it—
carpet.
We’d entered the residential area. I made my way straight toward a door marked NO. 3 LOUNGE. This was a bigger version of the one in the annex, with a dozen comfortable armchairs and couches. Sweat rolling down my face, I lowered Tony as gently as I could onto a couch. He grunted as I eased him onto soft cushions. Dazed by pain, he looked ’round at the soft furnishings. “Christ, I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“Not yet,” Zak murmured, looking ’round in awe. “But close, old buddy—damn close.”

“Zak, help me get the table against the door.” As we barricaded the doorway the voice of Phoenix came padding into the room. “No need for that, guys.”

“So what have you got planned for us, you freak?”

“That’s not nice.”

“Nice it ain’t . . . but true.”

“Valdiva, that’s the second time I’ve saved your neck.”

“Saved me for what? For that thing’s lunch?”

“Listen, you people. You are safe from them in here. They cannot pass the gate.”

“Unless you open it for them.”

“You think I’d do that?” Phoenix still sounded scared for some reason.

“So we’re not going to come to any harm?” I reloaded the rifle.

“I can’t promise that.”

I murmured, “Great, here comes the next mood swing.”

The TV screen on the wall suddenly sparked into life. I found myself looking at a close-up of Phoenix.

I nodded. “Tony, Zak, meet our host.”

They gazed in awe at the white-painted face and pharaoh-style eyes, surrounded by thick painted black lines, and framing the face itself flowered a mass of black hair.

Tony grimaced, still clutching his leg. “Hell, he’s not a pretty sight.”

Zak let out a whistle. “Would anyone, if they locked themselves down here on a diet of narcotics for months on end?”

I looked up at the screen. “What now, Phoenix?”

“I want you to see something.” He looked away from the camera lens. I could hear a keyboard being tapped. “Remember this?”

The TV flickered. Instead of Phoenix we were suddenly seeing a bathroom. The walls were stained with a tarry substance. More of it slicked the floor like straw-berry Jell-O. Beyond the doorway I could see the poor bastards who’d been drained of their blood. They lay there, as dry as Egyptian mummies, still wearing the fucking stupid rubber shoes.

“We’ve seen this before, Phoenix. We don’t want to see any more of your sick camera work.”

The scene cut to Phoenix in ultra close-up. His bloated face filled the TV screen, his bloodshot eyes burning out at us. “But don’t you see, Valdiva?” he hissed. “The room is empty.”

“You’re telling me the thing has hatched out?”

“Not hatched . . . it has completed its metamorphosis.
Look!”
He stepped out of the shot to reveal a figure standing behind him. Desperately he whispered into the mike,
“Help me, Valdiva. Please help me.”

Fifty-three

Wherever Phoenix was in the bunker he worked the camera control. On TV I saw the image expand to fill the screen. I heard Zak and Tony breathe in sharply, as if taken by surprise. I found myself staring hard, feeling an electric shiver run up my backbone as my eyes took in a figure behind Phoenix. A girl of around twenty sat with her back to the wall. Dark hair with odd apple-red tints poured down over one shoulder. Her skin had an amber glistening appearance, as if she’d poured olive oil all over herself. Her eyes were lightly closed. She seemed to be dozing with her back to the wall, her knees raised upward. One open hand rested lightly on her knee, palm upward, fingers slightly curled. She was entirely naked.

Phoenix’s voice came over the speakers in a breathy whisper. “The hive changed when you left. Its color deepened to crimson. It began pulsating as if it became agitated. Then a couple of days later I woke to find that the membrane had ruptured, releasing the fluid onto the floor.”

“You’re making it sound like a birth, Phoenix.”

“That’s exactly what it was. . . . Later I found her wandering ’round the corridors.”

“You sure she came out of the hive? I mean, she isn’t someone from the outside?”

“Sure she’s from the hive. This place is locked down tight. Not even a bug could creep in here without me knowing.”

I looked at the close-up of the girl’s sleeping face. You could even see individual lashes resting on her cheeks, while her black eyebrows formed two slender arches above her eyes. A lock of dark hair hung down over her forehead.

“So you’ve got yourself company, Phoenix,” I said at last. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“You’ve got to help me, Valdiva. She won’t let me out of here.”

“Come on, Phoenix; she can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.”

“I—I can’t explain it, but she’s got into my head somehow. She makes me do things . . .”

Tony caught my eye and touched his temple.
Nuts.

“Yeah, don’t forget I see you, too, guys. I’m not in-sane. This is for real. She can get inside my head. It’s like sleepwalking.” Phoenix sounded agitated. “I black out and find I’ve sealed all the doors to the command center. Then I find I’ve opened the outer door to let those crazy bastards in. I mean, what the goddam fuck’s going on? I can’t stop myself . . . I feel like my head’s gonna explode. And all she does is sit there for hours and hours. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t even look at me. Jesus Christ, I’m—”

“Phoenix! Has she said anything to you?”

“No . . .” He took a breath to steady himself. “No.

Not one word. Like I said, she can reach into my skull. . . . Please, it’s freaking me out, man. I want out of here.”

“Phoenix—”

“She’s really scaring me. I know that makes me sound yellow, but she gets inside my head, and I see what
she
sees. Then I remember what it’s like to be in the hive. I see myself in all that pink shit. . . . It feels like I’m drowning . . . and—and I’m hungry all the time. I’m so fucking hungry I feel as if my guts are going to explode. Jesus, guys, it’s a nightmare . . . a fucking nightmare.” Phoenix’s face suddenly ballooned onto the screen, the eyes huge and pleading. “You’ve got to do something! Please, Valdiva. I saved your neck twice. You owe me. A blood debt, you understand? You’ve got to stop her doing this to me.”

I watched the screen as he backed away, his face shrinking back into focus. Behind him the naked woman sat on the floor. During the man’s panicky rant she never moved a finger. The hand still remained there limply palm up, like someone waiting for the first drop of rain on a summer’s day.

Meanwhile Phoenix whispered over and over to him-self, “I gotta get out of here. I gotta. I can’t take it any more. Please, man, I can’t take any more . . . please, please . . .”

“Phoenix, just open the doors and walk out of there.”

“I can’t, I can’t, she won’t let me.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you hear me right, Valdiva? She’s screwed’round with my head. I’ve tried . . . I get up to walk to the keypad. But then . . .” He clicked his fingers. “I’m sitting back here again. It’s like being trapped in a dream.”

Zak spoke in a cold voice. “Kill her.”

“You don’t think I haven’t tried? Jesus H. Christ, I must have tried a thousand times. But the moment I move toward her I black out and find myself back here in this fucking chair again. Listen to me, she’s inside my head. She works me like I work this damn computer.”

“Why do you think she’s allowing you to speak to us now?”

“I don’t know. . . . I don’t think she—
it!
—is fully formed. It needs to stay here until it’s ready to leave.”

“So why did she allow you to save us from the hornets? Surely she knows we must be a threat.”

“Sure she knows all about
you
.” Phoenix gave a grim laugh. “I’d wager she’s hearing and seeing you right now. Either through my ears and eyes or in some way I know shit about . . . What do you say to that, guys?”

“So why save us from her bodyguard?”

“Valdiva, you still don’t get it, do you, man? Are you deliberately being stupid or what?” Phoenix lurched forward to fill the shot again. His eyes blazed out from the TV screen. “Valdiva, you and she are the same. You are both the product of the hive . . . Am I getting through?
You . . . are . . . both . . . from . . . the . . . fucking . . . hive.”

“That again, Phoenix? You are insane.”

“List the facts, Valdiva. You’ve been in close contact with hornets, so that means you were probably infected months ago. You’re the only person
we
know of that instinctively knows when a person is infected . . . your two pals there can back me up on that one, hey, guys?” He steamed on, speaking faster. “When you were on the run from the things you say you fell sick. Only you didn’t remember what happened exactly because you were unconscious for weeks. Now, how can anyone survive in a coma for weeks without expert medical care?”

“My mother and sister took care of me.”

“You bet they did.” Phoenix glared through the TV screen, so close one eye filled it. Red veins crazed the glistening white. “You were hive, Valdiva. And Mom and sis procured men and women and children for you to feed on, just like I did with this one.” He jerked his head back at the girl.

“You’re out of your mind.”

“Am I? Look at the hair, the color of her skin. They’re just the same as yours.” He gave a triumphant snort. “Now that’s what I call a family likeness.”

I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the voice. “Phoenix, it’s not true. I was sick, that’s all.” I glanced at Tony and Zak; they returned my gaze, but there was something uneasy about it.

Phoenix ranted on. “You were just like this thing in here, Valdiva. And when your Mom and sister outlived their usefulness you just wished them dead . . . and they died . . . That’s what these monsters can do, Valdiva.” He stopped, but his breathing continued loudly over the speaker. “But I don’t care about that now. I don’t care if you two become the new Adam and Eve and repopulate the world with a master race . . . because all I want is out.” His voice broke. “I’ve had enough of this stinking, rotten nightmare. . . . I can’t take it anymore. Really, I can’t.”

There was a pause. No one spoke as his breathing echoed in the lounge. I gestured to Zak to pass me the backpack. Pulling back the zipper, I saw two sticks of dynamite taped together with a length of fuse. For a moment I planned blasting through the doors into Phoenix’s communications center. But the doors were too thick. This little bundle of explosive wouldn’t do it.

Phoenix’s voice rasped dryly, “So how you going to help me, Valdiva? Or are we going to sit here and watch each other until doomsday?”

I closed the backpack so he wouldn’t see the dynamite through his spy cameras.

“Phoenix, how are we going to get in there to help you?”

“I told you, I can’t open the doors. She won’t let me.”

“There’s got to be a way in. Ventilation ducts?”

“Too small. Unless you can shrink yourself to the size of a mouse.”

“Any hatches? Emergency exits?”

“None. If this burns I’d fry.”

He sounded weary now. On screen I saw him shoot anxious looks at the naked girl. “You have to hurry, Valdiva. I think she’s waking up.”

“You’ve got to give me some help here, Phoenix. Think, old buddy; is there any other access to that room?”

“None at all. No . . . wait . . . there’s one of those little elevators . . . what d’ya call them? Dumbwaiters; that’s it. There’s a dumbwaiter over there in the wall.”

“What’s it for?”

“What do you think? People working down here’d still have to eat even during a nuclear war. If they were too busy to leave, someone would send them down food to eat while they watched the US of A flame out on the screens.”

“Where does the dumbwaiter come down from?”

“The kitchen. Right next to the room you’re in . . . but wait . . . you don’t think you’re somehow gonna sneak down in that and come out guns blazing. The thing’s that big.” He held out his hands about a foot wide. “Like I said, it’s big enough for a plate of hot dogs, not for a platoon of marines. . . .” He laughed. An edge of hysteria cranked it higher. “But while we’re talking about it, maybe you could send me down a steak and fries. I haven’t eaten in days.” He laughed again. “Fucking days. Man, I can feel my ribs through my shirt.”

Calmly, I said, “OK, Phoenix. Listen carefully. I’m going to send something down to you. Something nice.”

He shot me a look. “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to help you.”

“Forget about sending a gun down in the elevator. She’ll
know
, guys. She’ll see it in my eyes. And you can bet your life she won’t let me use it on her.

“Phoenix, trust me. I’m sending something down that’s going to solve all your problems.”

I watched him on the screen. You could see the wheels turn inside his head as he thought about it. Suddenly he looked up at the camera, his face filling the screen. That was the moment when I realized he understood what I’d been driving at.

“OK, Valdiva. Send down that steak. I like them bloody, so make it a rare one. Plenty of fries. Potato salad. And don’t be niggardly with that mayonnaise— you hear?”

“I hear, Phoenix.”

“I’m waiting, Valdiva.”

“You just keep that mental image of a huge juicy steak. Think about golden fries. Onion rings. Do ya like apple pie?”

“Good God, yes. Send me a whole apple pie.”

“Keep that image in your mind, Phoenix.”

Picking up the backpack, I went quickly into the ad-joining kitchen. Phoenix hadn’t been house proud. Wrappers, cans, cartons covered the table, along with around a hundred spent syringes. Boy, the guy knew how to party.

Set in the wall was a small steel door. Beside it were two illuminated buttons. One was marked UP, the other
DOWN
. I pressed the
UP
button. Far away, I heard a click, then a faint humming.

I pulled a plastic tray from the crud on the table, then set a plate on it. A buzzer sounded behind me. I gripped the handle on the door and pulled it down. It slid open to reveal a small steel box little bigger than the interior of a microwave oven.

Phoenix’s voice came over the speaker. “How ya doing, Greg? Don’t burn that steak.”

“I won’t. I’m cooking the fries now.”

Zak came to the doorway and looked in. He gave an expressive gesture as if to ask what the hell I was doing. I put my fingers to my lips for him to stay quiet. Quickly I pulled the last two sticks of dynamite from the bag. Then he understood. He helped me unravel the fuse.

“I’m just frying those onion rings,” I called. “Do you need mustard?”

“Send down a whole jar. I’ll go nuts.”

“Steak’s nearly ready.”

“Nice and juicy, is it, Greg?”

“It’s beautiful. You’re going to love what’s on this tray. Steak, fries, the trimmings. A whole pie. A jug of cold sweet cream. Keep that image in your mind, Phoenix.”

The voice came back calm and genuinely grateful. “I knew I could rely on you to help me, Greg. Thanks, buddy. You’re a good man.”

“Here it comes.” I nodded to Zak, who placed the tray containing the dynamite into the midget elevator. Loosely, I coiled the fuse inside.

“I think you ought to speed things up. My roommate’s waking up. I think she’s
gnnn
. . .”

Tony shouted from the other room. “Hey, come and look at this—quickly, guys.”

“The food’s coming down, Phoenix,” I shouted and lit the fuse. As the sparks flew I slammed the door shut and hit the
DOWN
button. With a click it began to hum its way down to the sealed room below.

“Greg!” Tony’s voice rose. “Hurry!”

I ran into the adjoining room. On screen Phoenix rose from his chair. One look told me that thing had him in its grip. His eyes glazed. He moved like a sleep-walker. Behind him, the girl still sat as she had before, not moving so much as a finger, as if asleep.

Tony grunted. “Looks like sleeping beauty woke.”

I focused on the screen. Her eyes had opened. There was something cool and distant about them. They looked up at the camera that filmed her. . . . It seemed as if she gazed through the TV screen directly at us.

Over the speaker I heard the buzz as the dumbwaiter descended into the Communications Center. In a dreamlike way Phoenix went to it, opened the elevator door. For a second he stood there without reacting, even though he must have seen the two sticks of dynamite and the burning fuse.

In one fluid movement he scooped the dynamite from the dumbwaiter, then as if he was shielding a newborn baby from the rain, he hugged it to his chest before moving away from the girl. He walked to the farthest corner of the room; there he pressed himself to where the two walls joined.

In an unearthly way things seemed to stay like that for whole moments, Phoenix pushing himself face first to the wall, the fuse burning toward the explosive he clutched to his stomach.

The girl gazed at the camera. Her eyes were languid, even sleepy. I knew she understood what was happening. Only she didn’t seem afraid. She tilted her head to one side, as if studying the expression on my face. Her dark hair spilled down over one naked breast. Her lips parted like she was just about to speak.