Terminal Freeze

46

They stood in the dim hallway outside radar support. Ekberg kept her head averted, hands clenched and fingers interlaced, shivering despite the warm air. Wolff glanced at her, then looked away again. Conti stood apart, reviewing the footage he’d recently shot on the camera’s small viewscreen.

“Why didn’t you let me respond to Gonzalez’s call?” she asked.

“He probably just wants to smoke out our location,” the director murmured. “He clearly retreated following the attack, and now he wants to pull us back as well.”

“He probably fell back to the life-sciences lab,” replied Wolff. “Rejoined the others. If he was smart, that’s what he did.”

“I doubt it. Gonzalez is a soldier; he wouldn’t have let a setback like this stop him.”

“Is that what you call it?” Wolff retorted. “A setback? That creature just killed another of his men.”

Conti flicked a switch on the camera and the viewscreen went dark. “Gonzalez wouldn’t take it lying down. He probably got jumped. Now he’s learned from his mistake-trying to take the fight to the beast was a bad move. Better to choose your place of engagement. Let the enemy come to you.”

Wolff looked at him in disbelief. “Emilio, what do you think this is? Some film you can script to your satisfaction?”

But Conti didn’t seem to hear. “Let’s check out that stairwell we passed. He might have taken his team down there, set up a killing field.” Hoisting the camera back onto his shoulder, he began to walk down the corridor. Wolff stepped in behind him, still protesting.

Ekberg watched them walk away. The corridor was wreathed in interlacing shadows that seemed to grow more oppressive by the minute. She could not get the image of Creel out of her mind: the torn and staring head, the spreading blood, the dismembered corpse. Woodenly, she moved to follow them.

“Either we radio Gonzalez or we head back to the science lab,” Wolff was saying. “Wandering out here, with that killing machine on the loose, is madness.”

“You won’t say that when we’re accepting a Best Documentary Oscar. Besides, you’ve got a weapon.”

“Creel had a weapon, too. A nice, big weapon. And look what happened.”

“We don’t know what happened. It could have been anything. Perhaps he got separated from the others. Perhaps he lost his nerve and ran off-straight into the jaws of the beast.”

They were approaching the stairwell. The metal-walled shaft was a maw of blackness, only a small glimmer of light from below illuminating the treads and risers. Ahead, the corridor ran back to the intersection leading to the infirmary. Conti stopped at the top of the stairs to adjust the camera lens and switch on its supplementary light.

“I won’t let you go down there,” Wolff said.

Conti continued to fiddle with the camera. “Didn’t anything I said earlier sink in? This is simply too important. If they’re down there, I have to film it.”

“We should never have left the officers’ mess.” Wolff looked back at Ekberg as if to demand her agreement.

She said nothing. She was too full of grief and horror. The memory of being back in the mess, agreeing to run sound for Conti, already seemed a lifetime away. The notion that the good of the documentary outweighed all other considerations now filled her with revulsion.

“It won’t take me long to check,” said Conti. He lifted the camera back onto his shoulder. “Wait here if you want. Kari, I’ll need your help.”

Ekberg shook her head. “Sorry, Emilio. I’m not going.”

Wolff put his hand on the camera. “You’re coming back with us. Now.”

“You can’t order me around,” Conti said, wheeling away, his voice abruptly spiking. “This is my shoot.”

“I’m the Blackpool representative-”

Suddenly, Wolff fell silent. He gave a low grunt of pain and covered his hands with his ears. A moment later, Ekberg felt it too: a painful pressure that seemed to radiate from the center of her skull.

“I don’t like this,” she said.

“We need to get out of here,” Wolff replied. “Get out of here fast, before-”

Once again he stopped speaking. His jaw went slack and his frame seemed to sag. He was staring past Conti, down the corridor. Ekberg turned to follow his gaze with huge reluctance, fear buckling her knees, afraid to look but even more afraid not to.

Ahead, at the corridor intersection, the webbed darkness had begun to shift.