“Follow him,” said Brian. “He’ll know the way out!”
They ran, and they ran, and they ran some more. The soldier ran hard, despite the equipment weighing him down. Strapped to one side of the man was a walkie-talkie. As they ran, the walkie-talkie began to speak: “Baker Team! Baker Team! What the hell’s going on down there?”
The soldier didn’t answer. He just kept on running.
A few seconds later the soldier stopped, breathing harshly. Immediately above him a vertical shaft ran up toward the surface, ridged with a metal-runged ladder and topped no doubt by a manhole.
The way out!
“This is it!” said Brian, looking up.
Not only was there a manhole up there: it was an open manhole. He could see stars glittering overhead. And a face was peering down toward him.
“We’re coming up!” cried Brian, pulling Meg over and guiding her hand to the first rung.
More plastic-suited men ringed the manhole. And two more faces peered down. Faces that Brian recognized.
Dr. Trimble and Colonel Hargis.
And they saw him. Recognized him!
Oh, shit!
“Close the manhole!” Dr. Trimble said.
“What?” said another man.
“That’s my man down there,” said Colonel Hargis.
“We have to contain that thing,” said Dr. Trimble, looking down at Brian, cold ice in his eyes. “Now, close it off. That’s an order.”
“No!” cried Meg, as the manhole cover scratched across pavement and rattled into place.
“No!” cried the wounded soldier, seeing what had happened. “Noooooooooo!”
“Hell,” said Brian. He climbed up the ladder. He was going to push that thing off! Before they could do anything about it!
Oh, hell! He could hear a truck. They were going to put a goddamn truck tire over the manhole cover.
Sure enough, by the time he reached the top and pushed, pushed hard, the thing didn’t budge. Not a half inch.
“You son of a bitch!” cried Brian.
No good being up here. He stormed down the ladder.
Below, the soldier was fiddling with his walkie-talkie. He flicked a switch and spoke into it. “Colonel! You can’t! That thing’s down here with us!”
Brian grabbed the walkie-talkie from him.
“Trimble? You hear me?” he cried into the receiver.
No answer.
“Talk to me!”
Then he noticed a chill around his feet… a pressure.
“The water’s rising,” said the soldier. “It’s coming for us.”
Brian looked down. Sure enough, the water level was inching up, lapping now at their ankles. The soldier whimpered and fell against a wall, beginning to weep with hopelessness.
God. They were trapped. This was it, thought Brian. They were going to get eaten… dissolved… digested, just like the others.
Damn!
He looked at Meg, and she was staring at him in a funny way.
“I thought you were gonna look after yourself,” she said.
“I guess I blew it, huh.” He looked around. Shrugged. Sighed. “I’m sorry, Meg. I really am.”
“Me too.”
Then she was looking at something else.
“Brian,” she said.
“Yeah?”
She pointed down at the soldier against the wall, coming apart. “On his belt, Brian. Look!”
Brian looked.
One of the pieces of equipment the soldier carried was strapped to his belt. Brian recognized it from war movies. It was a hand-held grenade launcher. There were words stenciled along the metal side: EXPLOSIVE PROJECTILE—CAUTION: BLOWBACK.
Oh, yes! Perfect!
He looked at her. And to think he had given up!
He grinned, kissed her hard on the lips, and stooped down. He grabbed the grenade launcher and pulled it off the soldier’s belt.
“This thing work?” he asked.
The soldier nodded. With his good hand he reached up and yanked back a cocking lever. “It won’t do any good. Not against that monster…”
Brian looked up the shaft. He put the walkie-talkie to his lips, thumbed the “on” switch. “Hey, Trimble. If you won’t listen to me… then listen to this!”
He aimed the grenade launcher up the shaft.
Meg and the soldier scrambled out of the way for cover.
Brian’s finger found the trigger.
And he pulled it.
The launcher tugged like a bucking bronco on his arms, but the missile went true. In less than a blink of an eye it tore up the vertical shaft to the manhole cover at the top.
Brian stepped to one side the very instant of the explosion. Metal and broken cement rained down—along with pieces of blown-up tire. It felt as though someone had clapped Brian on his ears. They were ringing like bells.
But he was okay.
Choking with the dust from the explosion, he picked himself up and called out, “Come on, folks! We got ourselves a way out!”
As quick as they could, they climbed the ladder, Brian first.
He had something important to do.
The fresh night air struck him, revitalizing him, as he lifted himself out onto the street, gratified at the sight that met his eyes.
Chaos.
The truck that had been standing on the manhole cover was flipped on its side. And so had a lot of soldiers. Including, Brian could see, Dr. Trimble, who lay just yards away, dazed, struggling to get back to his feet.
Brian jumped up through, clearing the way for Meg and the soldier to get out. His eyes raked along the rabble on the ground.
He saw what he needed.
He scooped it up: an M16 rifle.
He swung it toward Dr. Trimble. God, how he wanted to kill that bastard!
A voice stopped him. “Flagg! Drop it!”
He spun. Peripherally he could see Meg crawling out of the hole. Then the soldier, with Meg’s help. But just past them stood Deputy Billy Briggs, leveling his service revolver.
“It’s a lie!” he cried. “All of it!”
“I said, put it down!” cried Briggs. “I’ll blow you out of your shoes, boy!”
Dr. Trimble was using the time to pick himself up. “Shoot him!” he cried to Colonel Hargis.
Colonel Hargis raised his rifle, but hesitated. Brian could read the doubt in his eyes. The man, for all his hawkishness, wasn’t as loony as the scientist. And this business was getting thoroughly crazed.
“Shoot him?” said Briggs. “Shoot him! What is this, Russia?” The deputy swung his revolver, covering Trimble and Hargis.
There were clicking sounds as the other soldiers swung their weapons on Briggs and Brian.
“All right, hold it,” said Briggs. “Everybody just put your guns down!”
“He’s infected!” said Trimble, pointing at Brian. “Contagious! He’ll spread a plague through this town and kill you all!”
Then Brian noticed that there were townspeople gathering around. At the word plague they gasped and they drew back. That even got to Briggs. He swung his revolver around and put it on Brian.
“Listen to me, Briggs,” said Brian Flagg desperately. “Think for a minute! You suppose an army of guys in plastic suits shows up every time a meteor falls?”
“Shoot him!” cried Trimble. “That is a direct order!”
“How’d they get here so quickly? How’d they even know to come?”
“Shoot, damn it!” Trimble yelled, “Shoooot!”
“I’ll tell you how!” Brian continued. “That ‘meteor’ is man-made. It’s a satellite! It’s some kind of germ-warfare test! They fucked up!”
Maddened by Brian’s words, the scientist jumped over to Colonel Hargis and wrestled his M16 from his grasp. He swung it around, cocking it.
“Don’t try it!” said Briggs.
And the rifle went off.