Dean Koontz - Phantoms

:"Any theories?" Jenny asked.

"Well," Copperfield said, "I want to start the first autopsy and pathology tests right away. Maybe we won't find a disease or a nerve gas, but we still might find something that'll give us a clue.”

"You'd better do that, sir," Tal said." Because I have a hunch that time is running out.”

Questions Corporal Billy Velazquez, one of General Copperfield's support troops, climbed down through the manhole, into the storm drain. Although he hadn't exerted himself, he was breathing hard. Because he was scared.

What had happened to Sergeant Harker?

The others had come back, looking stunned. Old man Copperfield said Harker was dead. He said they weren't quite sure what had killed Sarge, but they intended to find out. Man, that was bullshit. They must know what killed him. They just didn't want to say. That was typical of the brass, making secrets of everything.

The ladder descended through a short section of vertical pipe, then into the main horizontal drain. Billy reached the bottom. His booted feet made hard, flat sounds when they struck the concrete floor.

The tunnel wasn't high enough to allow him to stand erect.

He crouched slightly and swept his flashlight around.

Gray concrete walls. Telephone and power company pipes.

A little moisture. Some fungus here and there. Nothing else.

Billy stepped away from the ladder as Ron Peake, another member of the support squad, came down into the drain.

Why hadn't they at least brought Harker's body back with them when they'd returned from Gil Martin's Market?

Billy kept shining his flashlight around and glancing nervously behind him.

Why had old Iron Ass Copperfield kept stressing the need to be watchful and careful down here?

Sir, what're we supposed to be on the lookout for? Billy had asked.

Copperfield had said, Anything. Everything. I don't know if there's any danger or not. And even if there is, I don't know exactly what to tell you to look for. Just be damned cautious.

And if anything moves down there, no matter how innocent it looks, even if it's just a mouse, get your asses out of there fast.

Now what the hell kind of answer was that?

Jesus.

It gave him the creeps.

Billy wished he'd had a chance to talk to Pascalli or Fodor.

They weren't the damned brass. They would give him the whole story about Harker- if he ever got a chance to ask them about it.

Ron Peake reached the bottom of the ladder. He looked anxiously at Billy.

Velazquez directed the flashlight all the way around them in order to show the other man there was nothing to worry about.

Ron switched on his own flash and smiled self-consciously, embarrassed by his jumpiness.

The men above began to feed a power cable through the open manhole. It led back to the two mobile laboratories, which were parked a few yards from the entrance to the drain.

Ron took the end of the cable, and Billy, shuffling forward in a crouch, led the way Cast. On the street above, the other men paid out more cable into the drain.

This tunnel should intersect an equally large hole perhaps larger conduit under the main street, Skyline Road. At that point there ought to be a power company junction box where several strands of the town's electrical web were joined together. As Billy proceeded with all the caution that Copperfield had suggested, he played the beam of his flashlight over the walls of the tunnel, looking for the power company's insignia.

The junction box was on the left, five or six feet this side of the intersection of the two conduits. Billy walked past it, to the Skyline Road drain, leaned out into the passageway, and pointed his light to the right and to the left, making sure there was nothing lurking around. The Skyline Road pipe was the same size as the one in which he now stood, but it followed the slope of the street above it, plunging down the mountainside. There was nothing in sight.

Looking downhill, into the dwindling gray bore of the tunnel, Billy Velazquez was reminded of a story he'd read years ago in a horror comic.

He'd forgotten the title of it. The tale was about a bank robber who killed two people during a holdup and then, fleeing police, slipped into the city's storm drain system. The villain had taken a downward-sloping tunnel, figuring it would lead to the river, but where it had led, instead, was to Hell. That was what the Skyline Road drain looked like as it fell down, down, down: a road to Hell.

Billy turned to peer uphill again, wondering if it would look like a road to Heaven. But it looked the same both ways. Up or down, it looked like a road to Hell.

What had happened to Sergeant Harker?

Would the same thing happen to everyone, sooner or later?

Even to William Velazquez Velazquez, who had always been so sure (until now) that he would live forever?

His mouth was suddenly dry.

He turned his head inside his helmet and put his parched lips on the nipple of the nutrient tube. He sucked on it, drawing a sweet, cool, carbohydrate-packed, vitamin-and-mineral-rich fluid into his mouth. What he wanted was a beer. But until he could get out of this suit, the nutrient solution was the only thing available. He carried a forty-eight-hour supply-if he didn't take more than two ounces an hour.

Turning away from the road to Hell, he went to the junction box. Ron Peake was at work already. Moving efficiently despite their bulky decon suits and the cramped quarters, they tapped into the power supply.

The unit had brought its own generator, but it would be used only if the more convenient municipal power were lost.

In a few minutes, Velazquez and Peake were finished. Billy used his suit-to-suit radio to call up to the surface." General, we've made the tap. You should have power now, sir.”

The response came at once: "We do. Now get your asses out of there on the double!”

"Yes, sir," Billy said.

Then he heard… something.

Rustling.

Panting.

And Ron Peake grabbed Billy's shoulder. Pointed. Past him.

Back toward the Skyline drain.

Billy whirled around, crouched down even farther, and shone his flashlight out into the intersection, where Peake's flash was focused.

Animals were streaming down the Skyline Road tunnel. Dozens upon dozens. Dogs. White and gray and black and brown and rust-red and golden, dogs of all sizes and descriptions: mostly mutts but also beagles, toy poodles, full-size poodles, German shepherds, spaniels, two Great Danes, a couple of Airedales, a schnauzer, a pair of coal-black Dobermans with brown-trimmed muzzles. And there were cats, too. Big and small. Lean cats and fat cats. Black and calico and white and yellow and ring-tailed and brown and spotted and striped and gray cats.

None of the dogs barked or-growled. None of the cats meowed or hissed.

The only sounds were their panting and the soft padding and scraping of their paws on the concrete. The animals poured down through the drain with a curious intensity, all of them looking straight ahead, none of them even glancing into the intersecting drain, where Billy and Peake stood.

"What're they doing down here?" Billy wanted to know.

"How'd they get here?”

From the street above, Copperfield radioed down: "What's wrong, Velazquez?”

Billy was so amazed by the procession of animals that he didn't immediately respond.

Other animals began to appear, mixed in among the cats and dogs.

Squirrels. Rabbits. A gray fox. Raccoons. More foxes and more squirrels. Skunks. All of them were staring straight ahead, oblivious of everything except the need to keep moving. Possums and badgers. Mice and chipmunks. Coyotes.

All rushing down the road to Hell, swamng over and around and under one another, yet never once stumbling or hesitating or snapping at one another. This strange parade was as swift, continuous, and harmonious as flowing water.