After so much effort and loss, their arrival at the Outpost seemed almost anticlimactic. It was during the second night, about six hours after sunset, that Dodge felt a subtle change in the way the Float Car was moving. He asked Newcombe for the lamp and cast the beam ahead of them as they began descending.
The ice held onto its secret right up until the last moment. They caught just a glimpse of the gaping hole in the ice before it swallowed them up.
The Float Car swooped through the tunnels like it was some kind of carnival ride. Despite the protection afforded by the force field, the riders all drew in, huddling low as if afraid that the smooth ceiling above would drop suddenly and decapitate them.
Dodge was surprised by his own sense of familiarity with the place. The tunnels and junctions evoked memories of his one and only previous visit and he began to anticipate what they would see next and more importantly, when the journey would end. They were approaching the central chamber — the source of the unknown attraction that had drawn them more than a thousand miles across Antarctica.
If their enemies had indeed arrived ahead of them, then there might be a nasty surprise waiting for them in that chamber. He eased his foot off the accelerator pedal and applied the brake, steering into the next siding.
"Gentlemen…and lady, we've arrived," he announced theatrically as the Float Car settled onto the ice. "Welcome to the Outpost."
CHAPTER 11 — "I ALONE SURVIVED TO TELL THEE"
Hurley reacted instinctively, sweeping his pistols around to draw a bead on the shifting mass of metal. Hobbs moved just as quickly, raising both hands in a silent admonition to his friend that urged both caution and restraint. It was a form of communication in which both men were well-versed and Hurricane immediately tilted the barrels of his automatics up to indicate that he understood the message, if not perhaps the reason for it. One of Christy's diggers however, failed to grasp the significance of the gesture and reflexively snapped off several rounds from his own pistol.
Molly saw faint ripples, like those from a pebble cast into still waters, as the bullets struck their target. In that same instant, she became aware of the fact that the snake was now much bigger, swelling before her eyes as the metal from the pillar flowed smoothly, like mercury, into the body of the serpent shape. All of that happened in the blink of an eye or rather between the first and second shots from the workman's pistol. By the time a third shot splashed into the liquefied surface, there was no longer anything resembling a pillar of metal, but only an enormous, shimmering serpent. She caught a glimpse of the skull, still limned in blue fire and caught in the snake’s jaws, as it turned its monochrome gaze toward the man with the gun. A fourth bullet splashed into it — four shots all in the space of half as many seconds — and then the snake struck.
It did not undulate like the reptilian beast it approximated, but rather drove bullet straight and nearly as quick, at the unfortunate workman. Yet, he was neither impaled, nor blasted out of the way. Instead, the silvery metal flowed over him like water, completely enveloping him so that for an instant, he resembled a piece of statuary rendered in chrome and brought to life, thrashing and clawing in vain to pierce the mirrored lacquer. Like a small animal in the gullet of a viper, he had been swallowed alive.
And then, in a moment of time that would relive itself in Molly's nightmares until the end of her life, the metallic man-shape began to shrink. The metal covering constricted in upon its victim and though the sound of gunfire continued to reverberate in the hewed cavern, Molly was sure that she could hear the sound of bones being crushed to dust.
The man's comrades were likewise awestruck by the manner of his demise, but the urgency of their own plight snapped them back to reality almost as quickly as the serpent returned to its previous shape. One of them started to aim his pistol at the metallic mass, but a strident hiss from Hobbs stayed his hand. The snake head swiveled around, searching for its next target, but everyone still alive in the pit had deduced the meaning of the Padre's unspoken admonitions. For a moment stretched to an agonizing eternity, no one moved.
Bullets continued to zip through the air overhead and the cries of the wounded or dying drifted down in between the harsh staccato report of gunfire. These noises soon commanded the attention of the massive serpent and it smoothly flowed straight up, like a fakir's rope in a carnival trick, until it was peering over the rim of the excavation. It remained vertical for only a moment and then having evidently spied a new target, vanished.
For several seconds, the imperative to remain stock still stayed in effect, with all eyes fixed on Hobbs as though he were the referee in some children’s game and only he could give the command that would release them from their frozen state. The ascetic priest was likewise motionless, with only his eyes moving to match each imploring gaze. As his stare shifted away from hers, Molly realized that silence now reigned beyond the limits of the dig site; the thunderous exchange had abruptly ceased. Hobbs glanced at Christy and with a terse nod, moved to the ladder and cautiously ascended.
"It's gone," he murmured and then with more urgency, added, "Moll, get up here. There are wounded."
His plea snapped her back from the paralyzing fear and terror and worst of all, the sense of uselessness that had plagued her ever since…Ever since I joined my father's friends; Dodge Dalton and his band of merry men, she thought morosely as she hastened up the ladder. Guns, zombies and now some kind of unstoppable supernatural…thing.
That was her father's world, not hers.
At least treating injuries is something I know how to do.
As she topped the ladder she saw Hobbs bending over one of three fallen figures that lay scattered across the open space between the edge of the excavation and the mouth of the tunnel. There was no sign of the metal serpent, the original group of attackers or any of Christie's other workers. The man with her father was Trent Baylor. He was alive, but every breath was an agony. Molly immediately saw the cause of his distress; a bullet had pierced his chest cavity.
She tore open his shirt, exposing a tiny hole surrounded by a bloody froth of bubbles. "It's a sucking chest wound."
Hobbs abruptly dug into a pocket and withdrew a length of neatly folded violet fabric which Molly recognized instantly: the priestly stole, worn when administering the last rites.
"No! We can save him. We just have to make an airtight seal so he can breathe again."
"Moll, it's silk. It should do the job."
She stared back, unable to comprehend that the clerical vestment could be used for something so mundane. Hobbs seemed to realize this and instead of offering further explanation, he simply pressed the folded stole against the wound. The layers of tightly woven fiber were not perfectly impermeable, but the effect was dramatic nonetheless. Baylor's next breath filled his lungs and within seconds, his pallor changed from a dusky blue to a more natural, though still deathly pale, hue. After a few more breaths, his eyes fluttered open.
Hobbs leaned close to his ear. "The destroyer; did you see it?"
"It… killed them. It killed all of them." Baylor winced, from pain or from the horror of the memory, Molly could not say.
"Where did it go?"
"It just…" The injured man seemed unable to find words to describe what he had witnessed, but whatever it was had been just as strange as the manifestation itself.
"He needs a surgeon," Molly interjected. "Urgently."
"I'll hold the dressing. You check the others."