Last Gasp

Jo screwed the top on the canteen and slung it around her neck. 'Will they have lights?' 'What?'

'If they're following our trail they'll need lights, won't they, to see by? So we should be able to see them!'

That hadn't occurred to him. But see whom, for God's sake? Mutes? Prims? Men with guns in Sherman tanks? Or somebody else. Something else . . .

They had both stopped and were straining their eyes to penetrate the dense velvety darkness that seemed almost palpable. 'I can't see anything, can you?' Jo said, sounding relieved.

'No. What if they can see in the dark?'

'You mean like cats?'

'It's possible.'

'How?'

Dan looked at her, seeing the polished glint of her eyes in a smudge of pale yellow, which was the barrier cream caking her face. They had removed their gauze masks and goggles the minute the sun had dipped over the horizon. 'Most of the mutes have impaired faculties, but some of them have developed heightened senses to compensate. There was one I came across near Adamsville last year who could actually smell water, you know, like animals can. And somebody else I heard of who had infrared vision. If they've got that they won't need any light.'

'You'd make a great morale officer.'

'Sorry. Thinking out loud.'

'Then think of something cheerful and let's keep moving while you're doing it.'

Ten minutes later they heard what sounded like a cry in the distance. Human or animal? Was there any animal life left in the desert? They listened intently but heard nothing more.

Dan flicked on a pencil flashlight and, shielding it with his body, squinted at his wrist compass. They were heading northeast. At this rate they couldn't be more than an hour, perhaps less, from the nearest access point. He'd made up his mind to enter the complex and not risk being overtaken by whatever, if anything, was following them. He prayed he could find the concealed entrance in the darkness. It was hard enough in daylight, searching for the triangular markers.

He moved on, having taken a dozen paces before he realized that Jo wasn't beside him. Dimly he made out her slight figure standing rigid, head raised, and beyond her saw the reason for it: five blue-white spheres ascending in perfect formation against the blaze of stars. They rose from the southwest in total silence and arced across the sky, gradually fading and becoming lost somewhere in the region of Draco.

'What are they?' Jo said in a hushed voice. 'Are they terrestrial?'

It was the first time either of them had seen the UFOs, and Dan for one hadn't believed in them until now. He said, 'You mean our spacecraft? From Earth?'

'It's possible, isn't it?'

'Well, they sure as hell weren't meteorites,' he said tartly.

Again they heard the cry, like a lost bird, nearer now, and Jo clutched his arm. 'They're still following us! I bet you were right, one of the bastards has infrared vision.'

'I wish I'd never mentioned it,' Dan said gloomily. 'That was an animal, a gopher out hunting.'

'I never knew gophers cried like babies.'

'A baby gopher then. Satisfied?'

All the same they held on to each other, keeping up a steady pace across the rocky terrain even though the air was stifling and their bodies were running with sweat. It seemed as familiarly grotesque as a nightmare, this endless walking through a lost landscape and getting nowhere, being pursued by a nameless horror. Something less than human --subhuman--whose only instinct was to destroy.

They passed the gray squat shape of a blockhouse, which told them that the nearest entrance was within a mile. The steel doors of some of the entrances had been welded shut and Dan hoped and prayed this wasn't one of them. Another fear, so disquieting that he didn't dare voice it, gnawed at the edge of his reason. What if there were things living in the abandoned tunnels? Creatures who like them had sought shelter and protection underground. There were over two hundred miles of tunnels outside the Tomb's sealed enclosure that had never been explored since the day the scientific community moved in.

Dan timed their progress and after seventeen minutes he knew that the entrance had to be in the immediate vicinity. All they had to do now was find it.

Jo sucked in a shuddery breath as the cry came again, this time on their left, to be answered by others on all sides. In the darkness Dan thought he saw ghostly white shapes closing in, floating like wraiths, making no sounds. Disembodied. Living dead. Zombies.

Perhaps Jo didn't believe in zombies, or her reactions were sharper than his, because she was already down on one knee, rifle leveled, and had fired three times before Dan had unslung his from his shoulder. He fired and saw one of the white shapes fold and crumple. Another drifted into view and he fired again, seeing it spin and wobble to the ground.

Crouched with her back against his, Jo said through gritted teeth, 'There are more of them than we've got ammunition for. Is the entrance around here somewhere or isn't it?'

Under the circumstances it was ridiculous to feel annoyed, but Dan felt it. What did she expect, that the entrance would stand up and wave to them? But dammit she was right. They had to find it and damn quick. The more of these white shapes they killed, the more of them seemed to pop up out of the ground.

'Keep firing while I search. But please, please don't hit me!'

Jo pivoted on one knee while he scrambled about on all fours, his face inches away from the ground. They could be right on top of the entrance--quite literally if it was covered with sand--or a hundred yards away, in which case he'd never find it. He circled around like a mole, thinking it funny and pathetic and yet unable to find a grain of humor in the situation. In a few minutes his gloves were in shreds and tatters, his knees raw and bleeding. What the fuck were those white things? Where had they come from?

There were three of them directly in front of him, about ten yards away as near as he could judge, pale and hairless and bloblike, and then he got a real shock. They weren't ten yards away at all but only a matter of feet. In the darkness it was so difficult to scale things that he'd assumed they were roughly human-size when in fact they were less than two feet tall. These bloblike creatures were almost on top of them!

Dan scuttled backward and cracked his shinbone on a sharp corner. He cursed through clenched teeth, unslung his rifle, and then he paused. Feeling behind him his bare fingers touched concrete. It had to be the edge of the parapet, almost completely buried in sand. A shot whistled over his head and the nearest white shape fell over with a tiny plaintive cry. Good old Jo was keeping them at bay, so now it was up to him.

Belly-down he slithered into a shallow depression, feeling the edges of the steps beneath the sand. He slid further down, the edges scraping his stomach and thighs, and began scooping desperately at the windblown sand. He'd found the entrance, but could he get in?

As he burrowed deeper the soft sand sucked him in until he was almost completely submerged. He reached behind him for the rifle and after a struggle was able to use the butt to dig his way through. Holding his breath and flailing away with all his strength, Dan felt the metal butt guard strike steel--he was through, but now he had to get the door open. Christ, if it was welded--

In this position it was almost impossible to exert any leverage, and in a panic he wondered whether the door was hinged or sliding. He pum-meled the door in a frenzy now, but the clogging sand frustrated his efforts and dulled the blows. He could feel his strength failing and he was breathing in as much sand as air as it cascaded down on top of him. Finally there was movement and the creaking protest of hinges, and then he was down in a long cool slide on a pillow of sand, gasping and choking as he fought to keep his head clear.

A moment later he struggled to his feet and waded knee-deep through the half-open door and crawled up the steps, cautiously poking his head above the concrete emplacement.

At the absence of all sound Dan's heart contracted. Jo had run out of ammunition. The white shapes had closed in on her. He called out her name in a rusty whisper, spitting out a mouthful of grit.

'Jo, it's here, I've found it!'

Silence.

'Jo, where are you? Jo!'

A white shape rose up inches in front of his face and he gagged in fear. A clammy hand closed on his wrist