Page 22 (1/2)

Thus far, the kaleidoscopic displays in the walls had not been accoh the air re of wind, as itoff barren alkaline flats

I looked at Bobby Even through the tattoos of light and shadow that melted across his face, I could see that he orried

"You hear that?" I asked

"Treacherous"

"Fully," I agreed, not liking the sound any more than he did

If this noise was a hallucination, as the door apparently was, at least we shared it We could enjoy the coether

The unfelt wind grew louder, speaking with more than one voice The holloail continued, but with it carove of trees in advance of rain, fierce and full of warnings Groaning, gibbering, soughing, keening And the lonely tuneless whistling of a blustery winter storh they were icy flutes

When I heard the first words in the choir of winds, I thought that I rew louder, clearer Men’s voices: half a dozen, maybesteel pipe The words ca froht here…"

"…hurry, for Christ’s sake!"

"…give…don’t…"

"…gi cacophony of as alhts and the shadows that kited like legions of bats in a feeding frenzy I couldn’t discern froroup and defend"

"…position to translate…"

"…group, hell…move, haul ass"

"…translate now!"

"…cycle, cycle it…"

Ghosts I was listening to ghosts They were dead men now, had been dead since before this facility had been abandoned, and these were the last words they had spoken immediately before they perished

I didn’t know exactly as about to happen to these doomed men, but as I listened, I had no doubt that so replayed on soent, and they began to speak over one another:

"…cycle it!"

"…hear’e…Jesus…what’s wrong?"

They were shouting now, some hoarse and others shrill, every voice raith panic:

"Cycle it open! Cycle it!"

"Get us out!"

"Oh, God, God, oh, God!"

"GET US OUT OF HERE!"

Instead of words in the wind, there were screaain, the cries ofquickly or mercifully, shrieks that conveyed the intensity of their prolonged agony but that also expressed a chilling depth of despair, as though their anguish was asby their screa butchered, torn apart by so that knehere the soul inhabits the body I could hear--or, ined I could hear--a reedily devouring this delicacy before feeding on theso fiercely that ain Fro truth could be deduced, but because of the distracting bedlaly just beyond e had been left unshielded, you would still have needed an array of heavy-duty power tools, diamond-tipped drill bits, and a lot of time to fracture those knuckles and jack out the pintle--

In every surface of the rooedwith ar shriek-hiss-whistle of the unfelt winds and the ceaseless, ghastly screae could be broken, the vault door would be held in place, because the bolts that secured it were surely snugged into evenly spaced holes around the entire circu one arc of it--

The screa intowith it and could contain no y of those ghostly cries pass out ofto focus more clearly on the door, I realized that a teah that barrier without explosives For the purpose of containing ned

At last the fearsorasp The purpose of the redundantly ar in addition tothan a virus Soination was unable to wrap itself

Switching offaway from the vault door, I called to Bobby

Mesmerized by the fireworks and the shado, buffeted by the wind noises and the screah he was only ten feet away

"Bobby!" I shouted

As he turned his head to look at h the egg roo my jacket and Bobby’s Hawaiian shirt It was hot, huetation

I couldn’t identify the source of the gale, because this chamber had no ventilation ducts in its walls, no breaches whatsoever in its sealassy surface, except for the circular exit If the steel cork plugging that hole were, in fact, nothing but a h the tunnel linking the egg rooh the nonexistent door; however, the wind blustered froht!" I shouted "Shut it off!"