She picked up her jeans with her one good hand and began to struggle into them. As she did so she realised they stank. And so did her shirt. ‘I need a bath,’ she moaned.
‘You need a hospital,’ Paul told her. He was already dressed and was strapping the flame-thrower onto his back. She saw that the few hours sleep hadn’t done him much visible good either. He still looked haggard and there were lines on his face she’d never noticed before. He was only twenty-six but now he looked thirty-six. She guessed that the terrible events of the last couple of days were going to leave indelible marks on both of them.
When she was ready Paul told her to carry the lamp. He was carrying both the flame-thrower and one of the Ml6s. Then they headed back to the bathroom where they’d found the creature. But when they arrived they got a shock.
It was gone.
The floor was bare. All that was left was Mark’s pathetic pile of empty clothing.
‘Oh no,’ groaned Linda. This meant the horror would continue. It was a nightmare. It would go on and on…
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Paul angrily. ‘We injected enough heroin into it to drop a herd of elephants.’
‘It must have adapted to the drug after all. It sensed it was a form of poison and the Phoenix gene devised a protection against it…’
Paul sighed. ‘You’re probably right. The damn thing just can’t be killed.’
‘What do we do now?’ she asked, nervously glancing behind her.
‘We head straight for the roof. Come on.’
The nightmare feeling grew more pronounced as Linda followed him down the black corridor. It seemed they had been running from the creature for years — for an eternity. Would it never end? Or would they suffer the same fate as all the others? Was it simply playing with them? Like a sadistic little boy pulling the wings off a fly?
Then came a bad moment when Paul admitted he was lost. But tg her relief he quickly got his bearings again and sounded confident that they were moving in the right direction again.
‘Not much further now,’ he told her. ‘The airlock leading to the outside door should be in the next corridor.’
‘Good,’ she said. It would be marvellous to breathe fresh air again. Since the power had cut off the atmosphere had become increasingly stale.
They were just turning into the corridor that led to the airlock when a nearby door suddenly opened and a man emerged. He was dressed in some sort of overalls and carrying a flashlight. Linda screamed.
Paul’s reaction was immediate. He spun round to face him, raising the barrel of the M16 at the same time. The man had taken only one step through the doorway when Paul fired.
It was a replay of what had happened when Linda had shot ‘Chris’. The fusillade of bullets at such close range blasted the man backwards off his feet and he disappeared into the darkness beyond the doorway.
Not pausing to check the body Paul cried urgently, ‘Quickly! Get moving before it has time to changc!’
They ran down the corridor and, to Linda’s joy, the light from their lamp revealed the entrance to the airlock. And even better, the glass doors were open.
Then, unbelievably, they were opening the outer door and stepping through onto a catwalk outside. Linda blinked in confusion as her senses were abruptly assaulted by a combination of grey light, cold wind and wet rain. She stared at the heaving sea in fascination, as if she’d never seen it before.
‘The worst of the storm has passed, thank God,’ said Paul, having to shout against the wind. ‘But that swell is pretty bad…’
Linda nodded. The sea was rising up the massive platform leg directly below them until it almost reached the catwalk on which they stood, before dropping away a considerable distance. She guessed it was a difference of some thirty or forty feet between the sea’s peaks and the troughs.
‘We’ve got a long climb to the top," yelled Paul. ‘You think you can manage it now?’
‘Yes,’ she said, turning off the lamp and hooking it onto her belt, ‘Let’s go…’
‘You go first,’ he told her, ‘and be careful. The steps will be as slippery as hell.’
He was right. Climbing up the steep gangways with only one arm to hang on with was difficult and she almost fell several times on the wet metal steps which were as smooth as ice.
Paul had problems too, having to carry both the flame-thrower and the Ml6, but finally they made it to the second level from the top. Linda knew she would never be able to climb the ladder that led to the roof but then Paul discovered another gangway. It went up to the helicopter landing pad directly overhead.
‘We should be able to cross from there onto the roof,’ said Paul. ‘First we’ll get you set up under shelter somewhere then I’ll scout around the life boats and emergency lockers and see what I can find in the way of flares and stuff…’
Linda was wet through and frozen to the bone when she at last emerged onto the helicopter pad. But then all thought of her acute discomfort fled from her mind.
Sitting there on the pad was a large helicopter.
It was painted bright yellow with the Brinkstone insignia on its side.
‘Oh Paul!’ she cried, ‘We’re saved! We’re saved!’
Paul had hauled himself up the last few steps of the gangway and was standing beside her, staring open-mouthed at the aircraft. For a moment he looked profoundly relieved, then his expression turned grim.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, ‘Can’t you see? We’ve been rescued!’ Then, leaving him, she ran across the platform to the big machine and peered in through the large open door in its side. To her disappointment it was empty.
‘No one here,’ she called to Paul as he approached. He was looking even grimmer.
‘I wish I knew how to fly one of these things,’ he said.
She frowned at him. She couldn’t understand why he was reacting so strangely to their being rescued. ‘Why? You don’t have to. The pilot will fly it.’
‘The man down below. That was the pilot, Linda. And I killed him.’
Sixteen
Linda refused to believe it. ‘No! That wasn’t the pilot! You shot the creature!’
‘I wish I had,’ said Paul bitterly. ‘But think back — the guy was carrying a flashlight. The thing wouldn’t do that. And that’s why the airlock was open. He’d just come in from outside.’ He shook his head. ‘No. That was a real person I shot down there. I’ve just committed a murder…’ ‘But you didn’t know… and we can’t be sure yet that was the pilot. You could be wrong.’ Please say you’re wrong, she pleaded silently. To be this close to rescue and then have their hopes dashed was ridiculous. It couldn’t happen. It was too cruel.
Paul didn’t answer. He climbed into the machine and began to investigate its interior. She stood there helplessly, feeling the cold wind pluck at her tattered shirt with icy fingers. She had never experienced despair as overwhelming as this before. For a moment she contemplated going to the edge of the pad and throwing herself over the side.
‘It’s a Sikorsky S-76,’ came Paul’s voice from inside the helicopter. ‘It’s pretty new too. These things haven’t been in service long. It’s supposed to be a good aircraft.’
‘Well, that is fascinating,’ she said with heavy sarcasm. Then she decided to follow him into the machine. At least it would be warmer in there. ‘You know everything Paul,’ she said as she climbed in. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t be able to fly this thing? Maybe you could get-us as far as another oil platform? We could ditch in the sea beside it. Just as long as we could get away from here.’