Lincoln Child - Terminal Freeze

“Maybe it didn’t know what it was doing. Or didn’t care. That can be part of playing, too-a cat doesn’t have any feelings for the pain of a mouse. The point is, maybe the creature wasn’t deliberately trying to kill. Not at first. When Peters’s body was placed in the infirmary, it came and took it back-like it would a plaything. And look at Toussaint-he was hung up like a toy. And there’s something else. It has killed, it has torn to pieces-but it hasn’t eaten any of its victims. Not a one.”

“Something we did angered it,” said Logan.

Marshall nodded. “And I think I know what it was. What did everyone who’s been killed so far have in common? They all screamed.”

“Kind of a normal reaction when you’re faced with a blood-thirsty monster,” said Sully.

“Marcelin screamed,” Marshall went on. “Didn’t Sergeant Gonzalez here imply that’s why the creature went after it instead of him?”

“And Ashleigh Davis,” Logan added. “The soldiers heard her scream, as well.”

“Creel screamed, too,” Gonzalez said. “It went right over me to get at him.”

Marshall turned toward Usuguk. “And you said that the first beast, the smaller one, didn’t become angry until it was played tapes of animals in distress. Rabbits screaming. But Toussaint didn’t scream. We heard him on the camera’s audio track. He just murmured under his breath: no, no, no.”

“This is nothing but arrant speculation,” said Sully.

“It’s not speculation when every action conforms to a pattern,” replied Logan.

“For all we know, the screams simply caught its attention,” Sully went on.

“Clearly all its senses are exquisitely acute,” said Marshall. “It wouldn’t need sound to catch its attention.”

The room went silent. All eyes, Marshall saw, were on him. Even Usuguk had put down his totem and was regarding him intently.

“I think sound is painful to this creature, perhaps exquisitely so,” Marshall said. “Specifically, sounds of a certain frequency and amplitude-such as a scream. Look at its ears, how closely they resemble a bat’s. Sound might have a completely different effect on it than it has on us. I think the creature perceives a scream as a threat, an act of aggression…and acts accordingly.”

“And after it’s been screamed at enough,” Logan added, “it assumes we are hostile-and grows angry.”

Marshall nodded. “Instead of killing us as a side effect of play, it begins to kill in earnest. For self-protection.”

“This is too much,” said Sully. “What do you suggest-that we kill it with sound?”

“I suggest that we look into the possibility, yes,” Marshall said. “At least, hurt it enough to drive it away.”

“Even if we could, just how would we do that?” Sully went on. “This is a radar installation. Radar uses electromagnetic waves, not sound waves.”

For a moment, nobody answered. Then Logan spoke again. “There’s the science wing.”

“What about it?” Sully asked.

“I know from that old journal its original use was something to do with sonar technology. I don’t know what, and Usuguk here couldn’t provide anything beyond a confirmation. Maybe it was some new submarine equipment, and they needed a remote place to research it undisturbed. Maybe it was meant to somehow supplement the phased radar arrays of the base. But remember: this research was abandoned when the creature was found, and the north wing re-tasked.”

“But for all we know the original equipment was already in place before the creature was discovered.” Marshall turned to Usuguk. “Do you remember seeing instruments, tools, in the north wing?”

The Tunit nodded. “Much was covered with sheets or tarps. Others were still in crates. And there was a room, large, round, with padding on the walls like caribou fur.”

“Perhaps an echo chamber of some sort,” said Faraday.

“But even if there are instruments stored there,” asked Logan, “who has the acoustic experience to put them to use?”

“That’s not the problem,” said Sully. “All of us took the requisite electrical engineering courses in graduate school.”

“You’ve seen my keyboard,” said Marshall. “I built an analog synthesizer in college.”

“I was a ham radio operator,” added Faraday. “Still have my license.”

Logan turned toward Gonzalez. “So how about it? Now will you let us in?”

“Nobody has been inside the north wing in fifty years,” the sergeant replied.

“That’s not an answer,” said Logan.

For a moment, Gonzalez said nothing. Then he gave a curt nod.

“What about Kari Ekberg and the others?” Marshall asked.

Gonzalez pulled out his radio. “Gonzalez to Conti. Repeat, Gonzalez to Conti. Come in.”

No response but static.

“Hold on a minute,” said Sully. “We don’t know for certain whether there’s truth to any of this. It’s just a theory.”

“Would you rather wait here for that thing to kill us all?” Marshall said. “We’re fresh out of options.” He stood up. “Let’s go. Time’s running out.”

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.