Уильям Мейкл - Operation - Antarctica

The glow from the circles diminished still further, and the saucer sank slowly downward, still hovering, but now merely inches off the ground again.

“It’s working, Cap,” Parker shouted.

“Aye, maybe. But is it working enough?”

They had to zip up their jackets and pull their hoods over their heads — the wind bit hard, with snow flurries spattering in their faces, rasping at their skin like sandpaper.

“Hynd, you take Cally and Parker and watch that doorway. If those fucking popsicles show up, keep them out in the corridor as long as you can. Only fall back inside the circles as a last resort. Clear?”

“Aye, aye, cap,” Hynd replied, and gave a mock salute.

“What about me, Cap?” Wiggins said.

“You’re with me, lad.”

“Are we going somewhere?”

“You might say that, aye,” Banks replied. “Let’s see if your flying is any better than your driving.”

“What the fuck, Cap?”

Banks smiled.

“That’s the second part of the plan. We call its bluff. We’re going in. It wants us to fly the fucker, let’s fly the fucker.”

He didn’t wait to see if Wiggins would follow him. If the private showed hesitation, it might have weakened Banks’ own resolve, and it was weak enough already. He stepped over toward the outer of the golden circles. The chanting came again, the monks shouting in the wind. This time, he did not put in the earplugs, but welcomed the song into him.

As he stepped into the circles, he heard Hynd call out from behind him.

“We’ve got incoming.”

Wiggins stepped up beside him. The door in the saucer cracked, creaked, and fell open to their touch.

They stepped up into the saucer at almost the same moment as the squad opened fire in the doorway.

Banks didn’t hesitate. He went straight to the pentacles on the floor near the long window and stepped into the right hand one. Wiggins followed him and took the left pentacle.

The chanting rose in volume. Dark shadows swirled around the two men, thick as velvet drapes, dampening, almost drowning, the sound of shooting from out in the hangar.

“You weren’t serious about flying this fucker, were you, Cap?” Wiggins asked. He sounded far away, almost as distant as the chanting that continued to grow louder, more insistent.

“Not if we can shut it off first,” Banks said.

“How does this fucker work? There’s nae fucking controls, Cap.”

“We think hard at it — at least that’s the general idea. I ken that’s not your strong point, lad, but help me out here.”

“Just tell me what to think,” Wiggins said, and Banks laughed.

“Lad, you’ve been in service for too long. But that’s the easy bit. We want this fucker quiet; dead and still on the floor like when we got here. So, sleepy thoughts, keep it quiet, and let’s get this thing shut off.”

Banks tried to concentrate on the same thing he’d told Wiggins, but quiet was a long way away. Despite the dampening effect inside the saucer, the sound of gunfire was still clear, and Banks could not erase the worry he felt for the three men he’d left outside.

It appeared Wiggins felt the same for, unbidden, the saucer moved. It did not descend to the floor, but swung around, so that they looked out of the window at the scene in the doorway.

“Did you do that, Cap?” Wiggins said.

“I thought you did.”

Then both fell quiet. The tall German officer stood in the doorway, and the three dead squad members stood at his shoulder. Hynd, Parker, and McCally backtracked, firing round after round into the iced dead but doing no sign of any damage. The oberst looked up at the saucer, straight at the window, directly at Banks. His eyes were no longer milky, but flaring fiery red, and his skin, once blue, had taken on a hint of burnt ochre. Dark shadows swirled behind him, almost obscuring the dead squad members, shadows that furled and unfurled, like great wings ready to take flight.

“What the fuck, Cap?” Wiggins muttered.

“Steady, lad. We’re seeing what it expects us to see, that’s all. We didn’t start thinking about red-eyed demons until I read about it in that fucking journal. This fucker is in my head. I hope it likes the mess I’ve made in there over the years.”

The squad continued to backtrack, still shooting while the iced dead came through the doorway, matching their pace to the retreating men. The tall oberst never took his gaze from the window, as if it knew Banks was watching. Banks had another epiphany.

It wants us all inside the circles. It can draw more power that way.

The chanting of the monks got louder. Banks felt the call of the dark, saw the shadows swirl darker, and stars appear in the blackness. The void opened out all around the pentacles where they stood.

Outside, the oberst took another step toward the retreating men. They were almost backed up against the outer circle.

“Bugger this for a lark. Up,” Banks shouted to Wiggins. “Take us up.”

“What? Are you daft, man?”

“That’s a fucking order, Private,” he shouted. “Fly this fucker out of here, right now, before it takes us all.”

Banks thought about the saucer, glowing brighter, and rising off the hangar floor. It appeared that Wiggins took his order to heart, for it felt like his own thoughts were amplified, boosted, and the view out of the window changed as the saucer rose, slowly at first, then definitely accelerating upward.

The tall oberst looked into Banks’ eyes. The last thing Banks saw before the view of the hangar slipped out of sight completely was the German’s lips raise in a smile, and a black, forked, tongue slither out between them.

The dance washed over Banks in a wave of blackness and void, starless and bible-black at first, then slowly taking form as they drifted with the beat. Part of him was aware that he still stood inside a pentacle, on the floor of a golden saucer, hovering now above the broken fragments of a shattered dome.

But that part was insignificant compared to the vastness of the void, and the call of the dance. Banks wanted to fall into it, to let it take him off and into the deep dark, where there was nothing but the dance, and peace, forever.

I want this.

And with it came realization.

This is what I want. It’s what I have always wanted, in my heart. The fucker is still inside my head. And it wants something else.

He tasted salt water at his lips, and remembered how Carnacki had stood, alone in the dark, remembered where Churchill had found his ‘demon.’ He had a final epiphany.

“Wiggins,” he shouted into the dark. “Go left. Ten feet then head for the door.”

“Then what, Cap?” the private’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere, a boom like the voice of God in the dark.

“Then jump. Jump if you want to live.”

He felt the assisted boost of Wiggins’ thought that, along with his own, moved the saucer slightly to one side, away from the shattered roof of the dome.

“Jump, Private, that’s a fucking order,” Banks shouted, and, judging to luck, left the pentacle at a straight run, heading for what he hoped was the doorway.

He met Wiggins just as his vision cleared. They almost wedged each other into the doorway. The second it took them to disentangle themselves was almost the end of them both; the saucer started to accelerate, heading toward the sea.

Banks didn’t hesitate. He threw Wiggins out the open doorway, then jumped through after him.

The fall seemed to take forever.

He hit soft snow over hard ice, landing on his back, and was able to turn just in time to see the saucer hit the surface of the sea far out in the bay. It skipped like a flat stone, twice, before breaking apart with a screech of tearing metal that echoed around the cliffs.