Douglas Preston - Relic

“Bailey! Don’t let it go into the Hall!” He fired into the darkness, again and again, up the stairwell and down, until he was pumping an empty chamber. The acrid smell of gunpowder blended with the nauseating reek as screams resounded in the Hall of the Heavens.

D’Agosta stumbled up the stairs to the landing, almost tripped over something, and moved into the Hall. “Bailey, where is it?” he yelled as he jammed shells into his shotgun, temporarily blinded by the muzzle flare.

“I don’t know!” Bailey shouted. “I can’t see!” “Did it go down or through?” Two shells in the shotgun. Three ...

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

D’Agosta pulled out his flashlight and shone it on [340] Bailey. The officer was soaked in thick clots of blood. Pieces of flesh were in his hair, hanging from his eyebrows. He was wiping his eyes. A hideous smell hung in the air.

“I’m fine,” Bailey reassured D’Agosta. “I think. I just got all this shit on my face, I can’t see.”

D’Agosta swept the light around the room in a fast arc, the shotgun braced against his thigh. The group, huddled together against the wall, blinked in terror. He turned the light back toward the stairwell, and saw Ippolito, or what was left of him, lying partway on the landing, dark blood rapidly spreading from his torn gut.

The thing had been waiting for them just a few steps up from the landing. But where the fuck was it now? He shined the light in desperate circles around the Hall. It was gone—the huge space was still.

No . Something was moving in the center of the Hall. The light was dim at that distance, but D’Agosta could see a large, dark shape crouched over the injured man on the dance floor, lunging downward with odd, jerking motions. D’Agosta heard the man wail once—then there was a faint crunching noise and silence. D’Agosta propped the flashlight in his armpit, raised his gun, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.

There was a flash and a roar. Screams erupted from the huddled group. Two more shots and the chamber was again empty.

He reached for more shells, came up empty, dropped the shotgun and drew his service revolver. “Bailey!” he yelled. “Get over there fast, get everyone together and prepare to move.” He swept the light across the floor of the Hall, but the shape was gone. He moved carefully toward the body. At ten feet, he saw the one thing he’d wanted not to see: the split skull and the brains spread across the floor. A bloody track led into the exhibition. Whatever it was had rushed inside to escape the shotgun blast. It wouldn’t stay there long.

D’Agosta leaped up, raced around the columns, and [341] yanked one of the heavy wooden exhibition doors free. With a grunt, he slammed it to, then raced over to the far side. There was a noise inside the exhibition, a swift heavy tread. He slammed the second door shut and heard the latch fall. Then the doors shuddered as something heavy hit them.

“Bailey!” he yelled. “Get everyone down the stairwell!”

The pounding grew stronger, and D’Agosta backed up involuntarily. The wood of the door began to splinter.

As he aimed his gun toward the door, he heard screams and shouts behind him. They’d seen Ippolito. He heard Bailey’s voice raised in argument with Wright. There was a sudden shudder and a great crack opened at the base of the door.

D’Agosta ran across the room. “Down the stairs, now! Don’t look back!”

“No,” screamed Wright, who was blocking the stairwell. “Look at Ippolito! I’m not going down there!”

“There’s a way out!” shouted D’Agosta.

“No there isn’t. But through the exhibition, and—”

“There’s something in the exhibition!” D’Agosta yelled. “Now get going!”

Bailey moved Wright forcibly aside and started pushing people through the door, even as they cried and stumbled across the body of Ippolito. At least the Mayor seems calm , D’Agosta thought. Probably saw worse than this at his last press conference.

“I’m not going down there!” Wright cried. “Cuthbert, Lavinia, listen to me. That basement’s a death trap. I know. We’ll go upstairs, we can hide on the fourth floor, come back when the creature’s gone.”

The people were through the door and staggering down the stairwell. D’Agosta could hear more wood splintering. He paused a moment. There were thirty-odd people below him, only three hesitating on the landing. “This is your last chance to come with us,” he said.

“We’re going with Doctor Wright,” said the Public [342] Relations Director. In the gleam of the flashlight, Rickman’s drawn and fearful face looked like an apparition. Without a word, D’Agosta turned and followed the group downward. As he ran, he could hear Wright’s loud, desperate voice, calling for them to come upstairs.

= 49 =

Coffey stood just inside the tall archway of the Museum’s west entrance, watching the rain lash against the elaborate glass-and-bronze doors. He was shouting into his radio but D’Agosta wasn’t responding. And what was this shit Pendergast was slinging about a monster? The guy was bent to begin with, he figured, and the blackout sent him over the edge. As usual, everyone had screwed up, and once again it was up to Coffey to clean up the mess. Outside, two large emergency response vehicles were pulling up at the. entrance and police in riot gear were pouring out, moving quickly to erect A-frames across Riverside Drive. He could hear the wailing of ambulances frantically trying to nose their way through the steel grid of radio cars, fire engines, and press vans. Crowds of people were scattered around, crying, talking, standing in the rain or lying beneath the Museum’s vast awning. Members of the press were trying to slip past the cordon, snaking their microphones and cameras into faces before being pushed back by the police.

[344] Coffey sprinted through the pelting rain to the silver bulk of the Mobile Command Unit. He yanked open the rear door and jumped inside.

Within the MCU, it was cool and dark. Several agents were monitoring terminals, their faces glowing green in the reflected light. Coffey grabbed a headset and sat down. “Regroup!” he shouted on the command channel. “All FBI personnel to the Mobile Command Unit!”

He switched channels. “Security Command. I want an update.”

Garcia’s voice came on, weary and tense. “We still have total system failure, sir. The backup power hasn’t kicked in, they don’t know why. All we have are our flashlights and the batteries in this mobile transmitter.”

“So? Start it manually.”

“It’s all computer-driven, sir. Apparently there is no manual start.”

“And the security doors?”

“Sir, when we took those power dips the entire security system malfunctioned. They think it’s a hardware problem. All the security doors were released.”

“Whaddya mean, all?”

“The security doors on all five cells closed. It isn’t just Cell Two. The whole Museum’s shut down tight.”

“Garcia, who there knows the most about this security system?”

“That’d be Allen.” “Put him on.”

There was a brief pause. “Tom Allen speaking.”

“Allen, what about the manual overrides’? Why aren’t they working?”

“Same hardware problem. The security system was a third-party installation, a Japanese vendor. We’re trying to get a representative on the phone now, but it’s tough, the phone system is digital and it went out when the computer shut down. We’re routing all calls through Garcia’s transmitter. Even the T1 lines are out. It’s been [345] a chain reaction since the switching box was shot to hell.”