Ice Hunt Page 24

  And still the beast ripped toward them, keeping its domed forehead low, charging like a bull, using its thick rubbery skin and insulating blubber as a bulletproof shield, a natural battering ram.

  Matt pulled his trigger, more in blind fear than with any real hope for a kill shot.

  “Damn things won’t die!” Bratt confirmed.

  Matt continued to fire, squeezing round after round, until the pistol’s slide locked open.

  Out of bullets.

  Greer noticed. “Go!” he ordered, tossing his head in the direction of the retreating party, now vanished. His voice vibrated from his own rifle’s recoil as he passed a radio at Matt. “Channel four.”

  Matt took the radio, ready to flee.

  Then the lead beast crashed to the ice, as if slipping, legs going limp. It slid farther on the ice, nose dragging, then stopped. Its eyes remained staring at them, still reflecting red in the flashlight. But there was no longer life behind them.

  Dead.

  The buzzing in Matt’s head faded to a nagging itch behind his ears.

  Bratt regained his feet. “Pull back.”

  The beast’s bulk blocked the remaining creatures, but the animals still could be seen moving behind the mound of macerated flesh.

  Matt and the two Navy men retreated to the next intersection of tunnels. Rifles continued to point at the dead bulk plugging the tunnel.

  “That should hold them for now,” Greer said.

  The bull’s body jolted forward, sliding toward them, shouldering over slightly. Then it stopped again.

  “You had to say that,” Matt muttered, backing away

  Greer sneered. “What the fuck?”

  The bulk began sliding again.

  “The others are pushing from behind!” Bratt said, amazed more than terrified. “Shit!”

  The buzzing in Matt’s head, dulled a moment ago, flared anew. But he sensed it came from a new direction, like someone looking over his shoulder. Matt swung toward the neighboring cross tunnel.

  As his flashlight turned, a pair of red eyes glowed back at him.

  Only ten yards away.

  Matt jerked his pistol up, pure reflex, as the creature charged.

  From the corner of his eye, he spotted the still open slide on his weapon.

  Nope, still out of bullets.

  12:49 P.M.

  Unable to determine what drew the grendel away, Amanda had no clue as to its whereabouts now. Connor’s mining helmet hung crooked on her head, casting a slanting beam of light down the tunnel, hitting an orange spray-painted marker on the wall.

  Lacy Devlin’s trail marker.

  Amanda searched farther down the wall. Please…

  Another painted spot appeared against the blue ice: a green diamond. Lacy’s path had finally crossed another. A sob escaped Amanda. She had reached the mapped areas of the Crawl Space at last.

  She raised the handheld radio and pressed the transmit button. “If anyone’s listening, I’ve found another trail. Green diamonds. I’m following it up. I’ve seen no sign of the beast for the past hour. But please help me.”

  She clicked the radio off, preserving the battery, and prayed. If only someone was listening…

  In dead silence, she increased her pace.

  As she followed one diamond to the next, she judged she must be close to the inhabited areas of the ice cavern system. Taking a chance, she reached up and twisted her helmet lamp, extinguishing her sole source of light.

  Darkness closed around her, close and claustrophobic.

  She was now deaf and blind.

  After half a minute, her eyes adjusted to the press of black ice. She scanned around, first with her eyes, then slowly swiveling her head.

  She found what she had been seeking.

  Overhead, a faint star glowed deep in the ice, a pool of brightness. Someone was down here with flashlights.

  As she stared, standing stationary, the glow suddenly split into two tinier stars, fainter but distinct. Each glow flew quickly away from the other.

  One rose higher and away, a fading star, waning, then gone.

  The other shot in her direction. Growing brighter, moving fast.

  Searchers…someone had surely heard her.

  She feared calling out, especially knowing what else lurked in these dark tunnels. Her best chance was to shorten the distance between the moving glow and herself. She twisted her helmet lamp back on.

  In the glare of her small bulb, the other glow disappeared. She hated to extinguish the only sign of hope, but it was too dangerous to traverse the ice maze in the dark—and she dared not lose the trail of green diamonds. If her rescuers had heard her, it was this path they would search to find her.

  She hurried forward, stopping every other minute to turn off her light and check her bearings in relation to the rescue party.

  And she did one other thing at each stop.

  12:52 P.M.

  “I’m still following the trail of green diamonds. But please be careful. The predator that killed Lacy and Connor is still loose somewhere in these tunnels.”

  In Matt’s pocket, the radio passed to him by Greer continued to relay this lost woman’s saga. He had already tried to raise her, but she either couldn’t pick up the signal or had some malfunction with her radio. Whatever the reason, Matt had his own problems.

  He continued his mad flight down the ice tunnel, empty pistol in hand, flashlight in the other.

  Five minutes ago, the solitary hunter had charged into the crossroads, separating Matt from the two Navy men, filling the passage. The pair had opened fire, trying to buy Matt time to flee.

  It hadn’t worked.

  After a moment’s hesitation, the beast gave chase—a lioness running down the lone gazelle.

  With nothing but an empty pistol in hand, Matt ran headlong down the tunnel, slipping and sliding down steep traverses. He barely kept his footing. His shoulders struck with bruising force against walls and outcroppings. But he refused to slow down. He had already seen how fast a bullet-riddled monster moved. He feared the speed of a healthy, undamaged specimen.

  For a few long minutes, he had seen no evidence of the monster. Maybe it had slipped away. Even the fuzzy feeling in his head had quieted. It was as if something emanated from them, something outside the wavelength of ordinary hearing.

  Now it had vanished.

  Dare he hope the beast was gone with it?

  The radio crackled again. “Please…if you can hear this, bring help. Bring guns! I’m still on the green diamond trail.”

  What the hell did that mean? Green diamond trail. It sounded like a Lucky Charms cereal advertisement.

  “I’ve not seen any sign of the grendel now for the past forty-five minutes. It seems to have disappeared. Maybe it fled.”

  Matt scrunched his brow. Grendel? Was that what had attacked them? If so, it seemed this woman knew more about what was down here than anyone else did.

  He raced around a corner, skidding on his heels, spinning to make the turn. Ahead the tunnel diverged into two passages. The beam of his flashlight caught a flash of odd color against the ice. A blue circle was painted at the threshold to the right, a green diamond on the left.

  Trail markers

  Understanding dawned. He chose the left tunnel and continued running, still watching his back, but now also searching for the next green diamond.

  Hell, if I’m running, I might as well run toward someone who knows what the hell is going on down here.

  Matt continued, winding this way and that. Gravity and the slick slope pulled him deeper and deeper—and still there was no sign of the woman on the radio. It was endless dark ice, and he moved in a glowing blue grotto, lit by his lone flashlight.

  “Hello!” The call this time did not come through the radio. It came from ahead of him.

  Matt skated around another bend, one hand against the ice wall to balance himself. His flashlight beam rounded the corner and illuminated a strange sight: a tall and shapely wo
man, naked, painted blue, like some Inuit goddess.

  He skidded toward her, realizing that she wasn’t naked but instead wore some skintight pale blue unitard, its hood pulled up. She also wore a mining helmet crooked on her head. Its lamp shone in his eyes.

  “Thank God!” she cried, hurrying toward him.

  Her features became clear when she switched off her lamp. The confusion in her eyes spread over her face.

  “Who are you?” She glanced past him. “Where are the others?”

  “If you’re looking for a rescue party, you’ll have to settle for me.” He lifted the useless pistol in his hand. “Though I’m not sure I’m going to do you much good.”

  “And you are?” she asked again. Her words were slightly slurred, her voice unusually loud. Was she drunk?

  “Matthew Pike, Alaskan Fish and Game.”

  “Fish and Game?” Her confusion deepened. “Could you lower your flashlight? I…I’m deaf, and I’m having trouble reading your lips against the glare.”

  He lowered his light. “Sorry. I’m one of the group being shuttled from Omega.”

  She nodded, understanding. But suspicion also glinted. “What’s going on? Where’s everyone else?”

  “The station’s been evacuated. The Russians attacked Omega.”

  “My God…I don’t understand.”

  “And they’re now in the process of commandeering the facility here, too. But what about you? Who are you? Why are you down here alone?”

  She moved closer, but her eyes flickered between him and the tunnel behind him. “I’m Dr. Amanda Reynolds. Head of Omega Drift Station.” She told him an abbeviated, hurried story of missing scientists and the sudden attack by the giant ice predator.

  “You called them grendels over the walkie-talkie,” he said as she finished her bloody tale. “Like you knew about them.”

  “We found frozen remains here. Down in some ice cavern. They were supposed to be fifty thousand years old, dating back to the last ice age. Some type of extinct species.”

  Extinct, my ass, he thought. Aloud he related his own experiences since the Russian attack, keeping a watch on the tunnels with his flashlight.

  “So there’s more than one grendel…” she mumbled, her voice a whisper. “Of course, there must be. But how have they remained hidden for so long?”

  “They’re not hiding now. If this is some frozen nest, it’s too dangerous to remain down here. Do you know another trail to the surface? With what was on my scent, maybe we’d better get off this green diamond trail. Try another.”

  She pointed forward. “This trail should lead to others. But I’m not that familiar with the Crawl Space. My guess is that they all end eventually at the exit.”

  “Let’s hope so. C’mon.” Matt headed out, going slowly now, cautious, backtracking up. “We need to watch for any sign of the grendels: spoor, scratched marks in the ice. Avoid those areas.”

  She nodded. He had to respect this woman. She had faced one of these beasts alone and survived. And now she sought to escape with nothing but a walkie-talkie and a small ice ax. All the while deaf to what might be out there.

  “With a bit of luck,” she said, “we won’t run into any more of them.”

  Matt turned just as a wave of buzzing cut through his skull, rattling the tiny bones in his ears.

  He felt a frantic clutch on his elbow. Amanda pulled beside him. Even deaf, she must have felt the reverberation. And from the way her fingers cut into his right biceps, she knew its implication.

  Their luck had just run out.

  10

  Blood on the Ice

  APRIL 9, 1:02 P.M.

  OMEGA DRIFT STATION

  After an hour in front of the space heater, Jenny felt almost thawed—and oddly reenergized. Maybe it was the caffeine, maybe it was the morphine, maybe it was the stupidity of their plan.

  Moments ago, word had reached them that the Russian submarine had left. This news came from a seaman who had been found hiding in one of the research shacks by the Russian forces and tossed into the barracks to join the rest of the captives. The seaman had witnessed the sub’s departure.

  “Do you have any estimate of how many Russians are still here?” Lieutenant Sewell asked him, kneeling beside the newly arrived sailor.

  The man shivered in his seat, his hands soaking in a bowl of warm water. His teeth chattered as he answered. “Not for certain, sir. I spotted some ten men, but there have to be more I didn’t see.”

  “So, more than ten,” Sewell said, his lips thin with worry.

  The seaman glanced to his senior officer, eyes wide. “Th-they shot Jenkins. He tried to bolt across the ice. He was going to bug out to the NASA station. Try to use their crawler to get away. They shot him in the back.”

  Sewell patted the man’s shoulder. They had all heard similar reports. It was clear the Russians were under strict orders to lock down this station. One by one, all of the officers and a few of the scientists had been dragged away at gunpoint. But they were returned unharmed, except for one lieutenant who came back with a broken nose.

  Interrogation, Sewell had told Jenny. The Russians were clearly searching for something, something that once lay hidden at the lost ice station. They hadn’t found it. Yet.

  Jenny had caught a glimpse of their interrogator as he stood in the doorway: a tall, stately Russian with a shock of white hair, and a face even paler.

  Sewell began to rise from his knee, but the shivering seaman stopped him again, pulling a wet hand from the bath. “Sir, I also saw two Russians dropping a canister into a hole in the ice. Other holes were being drilled.”

  “Describe the canisters.”

  “They were the size of minikegs.” The seaman shaped them with his dripping hands. “Solid black with bright orange end caps.”

  “Shit.”

  Jenny had been leaning over, tying on dry boots. She straightened. “What are they?”

  “Russian incendiary charges. V-class explosives.” Sewell closed his eyes as he stood up. “They must be planning on melting this entire base into the ocean.”

  To the side, Kowalski had finished dressing and stood in front of the heater. He held his hands toward the warmth. His fingernails were still tinged slightly blue. “So do we go ahead with our plan?”

  “We have no choice. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the Russians’ mission here is a plunder-and-purge. They intend to grab what they can and burn everything behind them. Whatever is over at the Grendel base, the Russians are determined to take it and leave no one to tell the tale.”

  Kowalski sighed. “Then, as long as they don’t find what they’re looking for, we live. Once they do, we die.”

  Sewell didn’t even bother responding to the man’s statement. He turned instead to Jenny. “Our plan. Still think you can pull off your end?”

  Jenny’s father placed a hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own. He didn’t want her to go. “I’ll make it.”

  Sewell stared at her a moment, clearly trying to weigh her resolve. She met his hard gaze. He finally nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Kowalski stepped to her side. He towered over her, a gorilla with only slightly less body hair. “You’ll need to keep up with me.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  Sewell led them both over to where a pair of sailors had pulled away a section of ceiling and cut through the insulation of the Jamesway hut with plastic knives. Their work was hidden out of direct sight of the guarded doorway. Luckily the Russians mostly kept out of the room, confident about their imprisonment—and rightly so. Where could the captives escape to even if they could get out of the barracks? The prison hut was well patrolled, and beyond the camp lay only a prolonged freezing death.

  Their parkas had been confiscated. Only a fool would risk the freezing storm with nothing but the shirt on his back.

  To escape here meant certain death.

  This grim thought plagued Jenny as she watched the pair of sweating sailors labor overhead.
They worked within the gap in the fiberglass insulation, unscrewing an exterior plate in the hut’s roof. It was difficult work with only plastic utensils, but they were managing.

  A screw fell to the floor from above.

  Sewell pointed up. “Normally there’s a skylight installed there. One of three. But in the Arctic, where it’s dark half the year and continually sunny the other, windows were found to be more of a nuisance, especially as a source of heat loss. So they were plated and sealed.”

  “One more to go,” one of the men grunted overhead.

  “Dim the lights.” Sewell signaled. The lamps around the immediate area were extinguished.

  Jenny pulled a spare blanket around her shoulders and knotted it to form a crude hooded poncho. It was too large for her slight frame, but it was better than nothing. Anything to cut the wind.

  The last screw fell. A plate dropped next into the waiting hands of one of the workers. It was followed by a blast of cold air.

  Wind whistled inside. Much too noisy. Sewell pointed to a petty officer, who turned up his CD player. The band U2 wailed over the howl of the blizzard outside.

  “You’ll have to hurry,” Sewell said to Kowalski and Jenny. “If anyone chances in here, we’ll be discovered. We’ll have to reseal the opening ASAP.”

  Jenny nodded. A bunk bed had been shoved under the opening to use as a makeshift ladder. Jenny scrambled up. She met her father’s eyes for a moment, read the worry in them. But he remained silent. They had no choice. She was the best pilot here.

  Standing atop the bunk, Jenny reached up through the hole in the ceiling. She gripped the icy edge of the roof. Without gloves, her fingertips immediately froze to the metal, burning. She ignored the cold.

  Helped by the two sailors shoving her hips, she pulled up and poked her head into the blizzard. She was immediately blinded by the winds and blowing ice.

  She donned her goggles and dropped belly first to the curved roof of the hut and slithered out. She moved carefully, her nose inches from the corrugated exterior. The winds threatened to kite her off the roof. Worse, the Jamesway huts had barrel-shaped roofs, like the older Quonset huts. The roof sloped steeply to the snowy ground on either side.