Part 8 (2/2)

Makenzie stepped out beside him and looked along the street: a line of Snowcats and a couple of Hum-Vees, outriders on Ski Doos; all of them parking up outside Janny Meeks' hotel. Armed men, answering Makenzie's prayers.

Janny was going to hit her own roof.

Makenzie strode past Downey. He had to get a closer look, make sure the help wasn't going to disappear on him.

Makenzie broke into something close to a trot, uttering a few prayers of thanks to a G.o.d he'd forgotten existed. Then took them all straight back the moment he recognised the man hopping down from the lead Snowcat to take charge of his town.

The engines wound down as his boots. .h.i.t the snow. Man, was it good to be back home.

Kind of.

Morgan glanced along the side of the hotel. Where a grey shape dissolved hastily into white. A toppled trash can rolled noiselessly in the snow-covered driveway.

The Doctor landed beside him. 'More coyotes. You know. I can't help thinking they must be hopelessly sentimental or desperate to be courting the company of humankind so freely.'

Morgan Shaw cleared his throat. You had to wonder about this Doc. He was on another planet most of the time. 'Hey, listen. Doc, do you think you can count yourself as a member of the human race just long enough to help us out here?'

'I shouldn't think that will be a problem. It's no more than I usually do.'

Again with the solemn, mysterious tones. Where did UNIT ever dig this guy up?

Morgan returned his attention to the town, at least the length of the main street. No, this didn't really look like home at all. Maybe that was why it felt good to be back. He was standing in the town but he was still very much outside of it.

The best way to be.

'When they get the lab set up,' he began absently, 'I'll want you going over every piece of that wreck with Pydych. We need results, the faster the better.'

As he finished the last word, Morgan forgot all about the Doctor. Another grey shape was looming out of the veiled street, and the shape had Morgan's exclusive attention even before the details had property resolved themselves.

Makenzie. No surprise, of course, but later would have done as well as sooner.

Man, was it good to be back home.

McKim called out from the map room. Joanna heaved the cellar hatch closed and hopped off the steps, satisfied that she'd shut out the wind and the snow, if not the cold. This bas.e.m.e.nt room had turned up only more shelves of chemicals, canned goods, spare parts and gas cans.

Hoping Ben had struck gold, she turned from the plank steps and switched her flashlight back on. Her small endeavour had also shut out the daylight, of course.

'Ben,' she called, her voice like an intrusion as she pa.s.sed into the other room, 'don't you get a feeling there might be something still in here with us?'

Ben McKim was over by the sink. Solid old porcelain, the cracks of age in its surface, he had pulled it some way free of its nesting place and was reaching into the gap behind.

Cold feet danced over the base of Joanna's neck. She glanced over her shoulder: nothing.

'Something we can't see,' she prompted, wanting the conversation.

'You mean the Invisible Man?' Ben tugged a plastic folder from the niche and gave it a once-over before pa.s.sing it to her. He clapped his hands clean and stooped to retrieve his H&K. 'Come on, Joanna, there'd have to be a whole bunch of them to take out this many And all these guns going off, none of these invisible aliens get hit? Not to mention where are the bodies? Normally, you loot a battlefield, the corpses are the thing you leave.'

'Ben. I don't understand any of this but I know we've missed something. More than paperwork.' She drew a deep breath to flush out the tightness. She teased a few of the doc.u.ments from the folder, focused on those with a lengthy frown. 'Although these are definitely interesting.'

There was a clatter and bang from the next room. She and McKim looked to the doorway.

Wind, snow and daylight had all broken in again.

Paul Falvi was up and bolting out of that attic room in a little under a second, slinging his rifle in favour of the Beretta. It wasn't a hundred per cent definite he'd seen anything, but he was going to check it the h.e.l.l out right now. Lieutenant McKim was not appreciative of false alarms. Probably even less appreciative of alarms that didn't get raised.

Down a flight, across the hall, he poked his head into Barnes' room. 'Hey, you got any activity out front, Barnes?'

'All quiet on the eastern,' she told him, her eye squeezed up on the sight like his had been until a moment ago.

Falvi raced to the head of the main stairwell, leaving a shout trailing: 'Maybe I got something. Movement between those two trucks.'

'Maybe you got something?' her call chased after him. you got something?' her call chased after him.

Pistol locked in a firm grip, Falvi descended the stairs two at a time. Urgency or no, he couldn't help a wry shake of the head. Didn't she ever let up, Barnes? One time she'd said they were like Legolas and Gimli at the battle of Helm's Deep.

Falvi hadn't even read Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings, but after she'd explained the comparison he'd given it a shot. Twelve pages in and he's skipping ahead to Helm's Deep, where the two warriors are in hot compet.i.tion for the most bad guys notched up. Mostly, Barnes and him were just a practice target's worst nightmare and they never counted their live ones out loud. but after she'd explained the comparison he'd given it a shot. Twelve pages in and he's skipping ahead to Helm's Deep, where the two warriors are in hot compet.i.tion for the most bad guys notched up. Mostly, Barnes and him were just a practice target's worst nightmare and they never counted their live ones out loud.

Now she was having a dig because he wasn't a hundred per cent. He's been watching the snow smother the woods for so long he's starting to see in monochrome. And she's covering the front, while the best view out back is out of bounds because there's no floor in the G.o.dd.a.m.n room!

Falvi hit the downstairs hall at a run, making for the back of the house. If he wasn't mistaken, then it wasn't just points at stake.

Joanna stuffed the folder inside her parka and backed swiftly against the left side of the doorway. McKim moved quietly and efficiently to the opposite side.

In the next room, light from the reopened hatch was projecting a shadow onto the dark boards. An expanding silhouette, it looked to be brandis.h.i.+ng a rifle or a shotgun.

Joanna studied McKim's eyes, trying to gauge if he could see any more than her.

Ben had his SMG aimed high and she could almost read his mind, running through every possible play. Joanna was pretty sure she'd covered them already.

In one respect, she had reason to be relaxed: the shadow was all bulk, but human. Safety was off. She hooked McKim's gaze on hers and signalled for him to cover her.

One long slow breath and she swung around the doorframe.

Steel struck her flat in the side of the face. There was a loud slam that carried on into her head, a liquid slos.h.i.+ng underneath it. Her world was on the move and she reasoned she was falling. By the time she hit the deck she worked it out: someone else in here. someone else in here.

Amid the ringing pain and the underwater vision she could make out the man. He was huge, magnified, at the foot of the bas.e.m.e.nt steps. Frigid light was barging its way in from above, filling the dingy s.p.a.ce and crisping the edges of the shadows. The shotgun had a silver lining as it came up and blew a great crater in the air over her head.

Splinters blew back from the doorway. Ben! Ben!

Joanna's fingers closed around her weapon's pistol-grip and she wondered: is this how it begins? In this house, people - human beings - shooting at each other, only to be swallowed into some otherworld oblivion? Fresh meat for a bloodthirsty void.

Near-blinded by the ache in her face, she brought her gun up anyway.

Chapter Seven.

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