Behind him he heard, as if in the distance, Parker and Wiggins loudly congratulating each other on a job done, but Banks wasn’t ready yet to join in any celebration. He’d put the German officer down before, put a hole in the dead man’s chest, taken out an eye, and still hadn’t slowed him much.
Just because the oberstleutnant had been put down again didn’t mean this was over, not by a long way.
Once he was sure the dead were really down this time, he let the men break off for a smoke while he and Hynd stood at the barricade, looking back along the corridor. He felt heat come in waves at his back from the saucer, but kept his gaze forward as the sergeant spoke.
“How long until the relief team get here, Cap?”
The man’s voice echoed as if coming up from out of a deep well, but Banks understood him well enough.
“Too fucking long,” he replied. He only half paid attention — he was considering going over the barricade and pounding the oberstleutnant’s head with his rifle butt until there was nothing left but slush. The trouble was, he still wasn’t sure that would be enough to keep the dead man down. Somehow, this was all due to that fucking saucer.
I turned it on. Now I wish I knew how to turn the bloody thing off.
He forced his attention back to the sarge.
“We have to stand,” he said. “I can’t think what else we can do — unless you’ve got any bright ideas?”
“I suppose flying yon thing out of here isn’t an option?” Hynd said, jerking his thumb at the saucer.
“Don’t even think of it,” Banks replied, thinking again of the dark and the seductive dance in the stars. “I’m getting no closer to that fucker than I need to. None of us should.”
Hynd was about to reply when they heard a metallic clang, far off, away down the corridor and coming from the living quarters beyond.
“I counted sixteen here,” Hynd said quietly.
“Aye, me too. We both know there were more than that the first time we came in. And we don’t ken how many more in total.”
Hynd echoed Bank’s earlier thought back at him.
“This isn’t over, is it, Cap?”
Banks didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Another clang echoed through the base.
He stayed at the barricade for ten more minutes, watching the corridor. None of the bodies on the ground moved, and it didn’t look like they were going to. They melted, having encroached into the zone of heat being washed through the hangar by the gold circles on the floor. A trickle of dirty fluid ran away down the corridor toward the living quarters from underneath the pile of dead. Within the space of only two or three minutes, the bodies were little more than rounded boulders of ice, nothing left of the men they had been. Even more disconcerting, if that were possible, every part of them melted down, bone and hair, skin and muscle — including their clothing, everything impossibly turned to dirty water. A stream ran, snaking, away down the corridor into the darkness, as if fleeing from the heat and light coming from the hangar.
Hynd arrived at Banks’ side and looked over the barricade. He stood there watching the melting bodies, silent, for a long time before turning around.
“Maybe we shouldn’t tell the lads about this, Cap,” he said quietly. “They’re all good men and are keeping it together, but this shite is nae doin’ their nerves much good.”
“Mine neither,” Banks replied. “But at least these icy fuckers have buggered off for now.”
“But for how long?”
That was another question for which Banks didn’t have an answer.
Another thought struck him, and he turned quickly to where they’d left Hughes’ body against the wall. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or not to see that the corpse was still sitting in the same position where they’d left him and hadn’t melted away like the others.
But that’s not to say it still might happen.
“See if you can find something to wrap Hughes in,” he said to Hynd. “We’ll be taking him with us when we go.”
“We’re going?”
It wasn’t until the sergeant asked that Banks realized he had made his mind up some time ago.
“I think that’s the best idea,” he replied. “Yon saucer creeps me out about as much as those fucking ice zombies. I’d rather take our chances outside in the hut.”
“I think the lads will agree with you there, Cap,” Hynd said, and left Banks to go to talk to the men.
Banks turned back to the barricade, pulled on his night vision, and tried to see into the darkness at the far end of the tunnel, but all he saw was the stream of dirty water running away into the black.
- 10 -
The squad knocked up a makeshift stretcher from the top of one of the tables that made up the barricade, then McCally and Hynd dragged the remaining tables aside to clear the doorway. The wood screeched loudly on the floor as they moved it, the noise echoing away down the corridor. Banks called for quiet, and they stood, listening, but there was no response, although Banks remembered only too well the metallic clangs they’d heard earlier. He didn’t expect this to go easily.
“We do this fast, or we don’t do it at all,” Banks said. “Down the corridor, then up the stairwell, out the door and down to the hut. Anything gets in our way, we take it out hard. Are we all clear on that?”
Wiggins, Parker, Patel, and Wilkes each had a corner of the table with Hughes’ body on it. Before getting ready to move out, all of the men had taken a look at what was now only a smear of slushy water on the corridor floor, but no one had spoken of it, and Banks wasn’t about to be the first to broach the subject.
He let McCally and Hynd take point, and he held back, letting the four stretcher-bearers pass him so that he could bring up the rear. He took a final look at the saucer as he left. It still did nothing but sit and hover, vibrating slightly just off the floor, but he felt its call, heard the stars sing in the blackness inside it, and yet again he had to fight the impulse to give himself over to its pleasures. It took all of his strength to turn his back on the golden glow and follow the squad down the corridor.
The first thing Banks noticed was how far the heat and light now penetrated. He didn’t have to do up his jacket or pull down the night-vision goggles until they were halfway along the tunnel corridor.
Despite the clearer vision, they were making slower progress than he’d hoped, for the floor felt slippery underfoot now where the water had run and frozen again. They’d have gone faster without having to bring Hughes’ body with them, but they didn’t leave men behind.
And especially not when there’s a chance of them getting up and walking around.
Wiggins almost lost his footing, and Banks had to move up next to the makeshift stretcher to steady it. Hughes’ eyes had opened again, and the dead man stared at him, accusing.
I’ll get you home, lad. It’s all I can do for you now.
Hynd and McCally reached the double door at the end of the corridor first, but didn’t open it until the whole squad had come together. Banks squeezed passed the stretcher-bearers to join the other two at the doors.
“Remember, we do this fast,” Banks said in a low voice. “Through, up the stairs and away to the hut, slicker than shite off a shovel. We stop for nothing.”
He opened the double door.
They wouldn’t be going anywhere in a hurry. Ranks of the frozen dead stood immediately outside the doorway, completely blocking their path to the main stairwell upward. At the lead of them stood the tall oberst, once again clad in full uniform, peaked hat firmly on his head, the jacket immaculate and free from any bullet holes, the Swastika showing sharp and clear on his armband. The German looked up as the door opened, stared straight at Banks with two milk-white eyes, raised his left hand, and pointed over Banks’ shoulder, back along the corridor toward the hangar. At the same time, he took a step forward. The ranks of the dead, four wide and at least eight rows of them that Banks could see, came forward in step, like clockwork dolls that had just been set in motion.