Callsign: King II- Underworld

The door burst open and over the incessant crack of thunder, a bone-chilling wail filled the room. Pierce suddenly realized that taking a bullet had just become a secondary concern. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three of the towering hairy creatures rush into the room, eyes red with rabid fury. With Nina’s hand still locked in his, Pierce zigzagged through the maze of workstations, racing for the door at the far end of the room. Behind him, the crunch of wood and plastic being demolished indicated that the invading creatures were taking a more direct route.

Pierce flung open the door and rushed through into the middle of a dimly lit hallway. There was an exit sign to the right, but going back outside was a frying pan to fire proposition, so he veered left. There were several closed doors lining the hall, and Pierce tried the knob of the first one he came to. Locked.

“Find one that’s open,” he shouted. “I’ll take the left side.”

Nina dashed past him to test the doors on the right side of the hall, while he moved down to the next. Locked again.

“Got one!”

At almost the same instant that Nina shouted, the door back to the control room exploded off its hinges and slammed into the opposite wall.

Pierce whirled and leapt across the short distance to the open office where Nina urged him on. As soon as he was through, she slammed the door behind him.

Pierce saw that they were in a lunchroom. The two tables and a scattering of chairs offered nothing in the way of a hiding place, but he saw a way to put the refrigerator against one wall to use. Nina divined his intent, and working together they quickly rolled the heavy appliance across the floor and positioned it in front of the door.

“That’s not going to stop them,” Nina warned.

“I know.” He scanned the room again, looking for anything that might help them survive the assault. He dashed over to the sink counter and yanked open the cupboard. The space was occupied by a small refuse can and a few bottles of cleaning supplies, but he saw that there might be room for a person of slight build to hide there. He cleared the area out with a sweep of his hand. “Hide in here.”

“What about you?”

“Just do it. I’ll think of something.”

Her eyes widened as she realized the sacrifice he was preparing to make, but she complied, squirming into the cramped cupboard. “Good luck,” she whispered as he closed the cabinet doors, sealing her in.

Pierce knew luck was about the only thing that would save him, and the sudden pounding from behind the refrigerator blocking the exit door indicated that his luck had run out.

He scanned the room again, then started opening cupboards and drawers, looking for anything that might be useful in warding off the impending assault. Aside from the tables and chairs, the only things he saw were a small microwave oven, a toaster and a case of bottled water on the counter, along with an honor jar filled with loose change. In one drawer, mixed in with an array of spoons and spatulas, he found a long knife with a serrated edge, but the idea of using it against the monsters seemed laughable.

The refrigerator jumped a few feet away from door, and Pierce instinctively rushed to it, and made a futile effort to brace it with his shoulder. He managed to push it forward a few inches, but then something hit it again from behind, and knocked him back. He fell into one of the tables, banging his hip painfully on one edge, and went sprawling onto the floor.

Wincing from the bruising injury, he rolled over just in time to see one of the hair-cloaked creatures advance into the room. Its red eyes met his gaze, and with a nerve-shattering scream, it started toward him.





36.


King knew that Sokoloff was now the least of his worries.

Copeland had been overly optimistic in his belief that the Army could hold off the assault for eight minutes. According to his still running chronometer, only about six minutes had passed since the activation of the Bluelight device—six minutes in which the creatures had seemingly materialized out of the mist and managed to either find a break in the perimeter or completely overrun the soldiers. And now, the only person who could have stopped it all by shutting down the experiment was dead.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

Eight and a half minutes is the upper limit of the green zone, Copeland had said. In his mind’s eye, he saw a temperature gauge with green, yellow and red segments. The imaginary needle was almost out of the green now, advancing relentlessly toward yellow and red. In perhaps in as little as five more minutes, the antimatter explosions in the Earth’s magnetic field would grow hot enough to set the world on fire, and there was no way to shut it off.

But there’s got to be a way to stop it, King thought.

He couldn’t tell if the creatures that now flooded into the control room were actively looking for him or just destroying everything in sight, but either way, he only had a few more seconds before they found him, crouched beneath a flimsy computer desk. King decided not to postpone the inevitable any longer.