Terminal Freeze

Now the wires were crawling with six thousand volts and twenty amps of juice. That kind of voltage-three times the amount of an electric chair-would seize the heart of any beast, no matter how big. And Gonzalez wasn’t taking any chances: the twenty amps would cook it nicely, to boot.

He shifted the fail-safe lever back into the Off position and turned to Marcelin. “Come here, Corporal.”

For a minute, Marcelin didn’t seem to hear. Then he picked up his M16 and came forward on wooden legs.

“Wait here. When I give the word, throw this lever. Do it quickly. Got that?”

The corporal nodded.

“Take up position by the doorway. Wait until the thing has stepped into the water, made contact with the wires. Then open fire-and keep firing.”

Marcelin moved next to the electrical panel. Gonzalez took one last look at the jury-rigged co

He gave his plan a quick run-through. It had been more than thirty years since he’d studied elementary engineering, but he remembered the basics well enough. Electricity passes easily through water. Organisms are mostly water, making them good conductors of electricity. So: hang enough live wires from the ceiling that the creature would have to come in contact with at least one, and hang them low enough so that it couldn’t crawl beneath. Pour enough water on the floor to create a shallow pool, and make sure it reached from wall to wall. Position the wires over the water and apply positive current. When the beast walked through the wires, it would complete the circuit-and good night, ladies.

It seemed foolproof enough. Now all they needed was for the thing to show up.

He crouched lower, minimizing his profile. He could see the dim form of Phillips up ahead at the intersection. Phillips was the lure. The private had a good vantage down both corridors; he’d see the beast when it was still far away. Once he was sure he’d been spotted, he would retreat down the hall, past the wires and over the water, to the spot where Gonzalez waited. As the beast approached, they’d signal Marcelin to throw the lever-and the frigging thing would fry.

Gonzalez snugged the stock of his M16 against his cheek, sighted along the barrel. While he’d been checking the electrical box, ru

He shifted position. No point in maintaining silence anymore now that the trap was set. “Phillips,” he called out. “Anything?”

From the pool of light at the intersection, Phillips shook his head, formed an X with his forearms.

Gonzalez shifted again in the darkness. Creel’s rocket had been sadly off target; it wasn’t surprising that it didn’t stop the creature. But the hail of bullets that had followed: Was it possible they all missed? Because if they hadn’t missed, then that meant…

Gonzalez didn’t want to think about what that meant.

Maybe it was dead. Maybe that was it. It had been mortally wounded, and its carcass was lying back there somewhere in the dark passages. Or maybe it had gone down to C Level. Maybe they’d be sitting here for hours, in the dark, waiting…

Gonzalez shook his head savagely to clear these thoughts. He glanced into the substation, toward the motionless figure of Marcelin. The corporal was in bad shape. He was confident-reasonably confident-the man could be relied on to pull the fail-safe switch. It was a chance he had to take. He couldn’t be in two places at one time, and Phillips needed him to…

Movement at the corner of his eye made him glance back down the corridor. Phillips was gesturing frantically, a stricken look on his face.

“Is it coming?” Gonzalez called. “You see it?”

Phillips fumbled one-handed with his gun, dropped it, frantically picked it up again. And all the time he was holding his other hand over his head, waving it, looking for all the world like a New Year’s Eve reveler twirling a noisemaker.

“Get the hell back here!” Gonzalez cried out. “Marcelin, get ready with that switch!”

But Phillips didn’t move. He just stood there, mouth working, as if terror had snatched his voice from him.

Gonzalez squinted into the darkness, frowning, trying to get a better look at Phillips. Focusing on the upraised hand, he could see now that it wasn’t just waving. It was pointing. Pointing at a spot behind Gonzalez.

Fear gripped the sergeant’s vitals. He looked quickly over his shoulder, back down the corridor behind him.

It was there: black against black, perhaps fifty feet away, moving with a stealthiness Gonzalez would never have guessed possible for such a huge creature. He stared in horror. For a moment, his heart faltered in his chest. Then it exploded into life again, hammering against his ribs. He tumbled backward, splashing through the water, electrical wires dancing crazily as he half ran, half fell down the corridor toward Phillips. It’s not possible, a voice was saying in some distant part of his brain. This corridor is the only way out. There’s no way for it to have gotten past us. And yet somehow it had. As Gonzalez took up a position beside Phillips, gasping, he saw the thing pause briefly, its unblinking yellow eyes staring coldly at them, before creeping forward again.

“Marcelin!” Gonzalez cried. “Marcelin, now!”

There was no response from the substation.

“Marcelin, throw the goddamn switch!”

Was that the low hum of the transformer applying the load? It was hard to tell over his gulps for breath, over the painful pressure that once again seemed to suddenly fill his head. The creature was still creeping toward them. Another few seconds and it would pass the door to the substation…and reach the wires. Gonzalez fell forward on the ground, the butt of the outstretched M16 snugged against his cheek. He tried to aim at the thing but the barrel of his weapon kept rising and falling with the beat of his heart. The beast was moving more quickly now, as if abandoning any pretense of stealth.

“Oh, my God,” Phillips was saying, in a voice that was half prayer, half whimper. “My God. My God…”

Another step. Then another. As it approached, the creature never took its gaze from them, never blinked, never hesitated. There was something so awful about that look that Gonzalez felt himself go slack with dread. It was all he could do to keep the rifle from slipping through his fingers and clattering to the floor.

And then the creature reached the water. As Gonzalez watched, it hesitated a moment. Then it thrust itself between two of the dangling wires.

For a moment, nothing happened. And then the corridor filled with a tremendous, ear-splitting crack. Livid lightning danced from wire to wire, arcing over the creature’s massive haunches, spitting a hundred forking tongues toward the ceiling. The air filled with the smell of ozone. Gonzalez felt the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Gray smoke billowed up in angry waves, filling the corridor, blotting the creature from view. There was a rising whine as the transformer tried to draw more current. The lights flickered-once, twice-followed by a hollow boom as the transformer overloaded. The corridor fell into utter blackness.

“My God,” Phillips was still repeating, tonelessly, like a mantra. “My God.”