Hive

Gates smiled, set his digital camera aside. With his big shaggy beard he looked more mountain man than paleontologist. “Oh, we’re unthawing our friend here, boys, but it won’t be by accident. And don’t worry, this creature has been dead a long, long time.”

“Famous last words,” Hayes said and they all had a laugh over that.

Except Lind.

They’d lost him somewhere along the way.

He stood there staring at the thing in the ice, listening to the water dripping and it seemed to have the same effect on him as the call of a siren: his eyes were fixed and wide, his lips moving but no words coming out. He stood there like that for maybe five minutes before anyone seemed to notice and by then it looked much like he was in a trance.

Hayes said, “Lind . . . hey, Lind . . . you okay?”

He just shook his head, his upper lip pulled up into a snarl. “That fucking LaHune . . . thinks he’s in charge, but doesn’t have the balls to come and look at this . . . this monster. Bastard’s probably on the line with NSF McMurdo, bragging about this, telling them all about it. But what does he know about it? Unless you stand here looking at it, feeling it looking back at you, how can you know about it?”

Hayes put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, chill out here, Lind, it’s just a fossil.”

Lind shrugged off his hand. “Oh, is that all it is? You telling me you don’t feel that thing looking at you? Jesus, those eyes . . . those awful red eyes . . . they get right inside you, make you feel things, make you want to do things. You telling me you can’t feel it up here?” He was rubbing his temples, kneading them roughly like dough. “Can’t you feel what it’s thinking? Can’t you feel it getting inside your head, wanting to steal your mind . . . wanting to make you something but what you are? Oh Christ, Hayes, it’s . . . those eyes . . . those fucking eyes . . . they unlock things in your head, they . . . “

He paused there, breathing very hard now, gasping almost like a fish that was asphyxiating. There was sweat all over his face and his eyes were bulging from his head, cords straining at his neck. He looked to be on the verge of utter hysteria or maybe a good old-fashioned stroke.

“You better get him back to the compound,” Gates said.

They were all staring at Lind, thinking things but not saying them. A clot of ice dropped from the mummy and Hayes stiffened at the sound. It was enough, by God, it was more than enough.

He helped Lind with his parka and led him to the door. As Hayes made to open it, Lind turned and looked at the scientists. “I’m not crazy, I don’t care what you think. But you better listen to me and you better listen good.” He jabbed a shaking finger at the mummy. “Whatever you do, whatever any of you do . . . don’t stay in here alone with it, if you know what’s good for you, don’t stay in here alone with it. . . “

Then they were out the door.

“Well,” Bryer said. “Well.”

The wind clutched the hut like a fist, shook it, made the overhead lights flicker and for barely a second, they were in the dark with the thing.

And by the looks on their faces, they hadn’t cared for it much.

4

There were a lot of camps at the South Pole. Collections of pitted bones scattered over the frozen slopes and lowlands like sores and contusions on the ancient hide of the beast. But only a handful of them were occupied when winter showed its cold, white teeth.

Kharkhov was one of the few.

Just another rawboned research station, its numerous buildings like meatless skeletons rising from the black ice, shivering beneath shrouds of blowing white. A desolate and godforsaken place where the sun never rose and the wind never stopped screaming. The sort of place that made you pull into yourself, roll up like a pillbug and hold on tight, waiting for the night to end and spring to begin. But until that time, there was nothing to do but wait and languish through the days that were nights and keep your mind occupied.

What you didn’t want to do was to think about ancient, hideous things that had been exhumed from polar tombs. Things that pre-dated humanity by God knew how many millions of years. Things that would drive you mad if you saw them walk. Things with glaring red eyes that seemed to get inside you and whisper with malevolent voices, filling your mind with reaching, alien shadows.

5

Although he drank a pint of Jim Beam Rye before lights out, Hayes didn’t sleep worth a damn that night. He had weird dreams from the moment he closed his eyes to the moment they snapped back open at four a.m. In the darkness he lay there, sweat beading his face.