James Axler – Stoneface

On the other side of the wall, behind the console, the whining sound slowly faded.

Ryan silently agreed with Krysty. This place wasn’t a redoubt. Almost all of the ones they had visited in the past had standardized layouts, adhering to the same design specs. Here there were no vanadium-steel sec doors, freestanding control consoles or flickering display monitors.

The door at the far end of the room was wood-paneled and had a simple knob rather than a lever or a sec-code keypad affixed to the frame. This place looked more like an office or a classroom.

“The Air Force,” Mildred suddenly said.

Ryan turned toward her. She held a scrap of paper gingerly between thumb and forefinger. A small dark blue symbol was emblazoned near its top edge, a bird with outspread, upcurving wings.

“This is United States Air Force letterhead,” she said, “a memo regarding the quantum interphase transducer experiments.”

The vibrations of her voice and the soft touch of her breath were enough to cause the scrap of paper in her hand to crumble and float away in tiny fragments.

“I think we jumped into a military testing facility,” she continued. “We jumped into a prototype gateway chamber.”

Krysty looked around. “It’s so old, there’s probably very little of use to us here.”

“Its power source is still operational,” Doc pointed out.

Ryan walked to the door and put his hand on the knob. Following a procedure that was now ingrained habit, his five friends fanned out behind him, taking cover behind desks and drawing their weapons. Looking over his shoulder, he began counting in a soft voice. “One two”

On “three,” he turned the knob, flung the door open and threw himself to one side. There was no sound from anywhere except the creak of rust-eaten hinges.

Ryan peered carefully around the door frame, staring into semidarkness. He blinked. He was looking down a long, smooth corridor, a dim glow of light filtering from its far end. Cool air brushed his face, blown from a distant, unseen opening.

Gesturing behind him to the others, the one-eyed man stepped out cautiously, heel to toe. His footfalls sent up flat, faint echoes. His companions joined him, pushing quietly through the dimness. J.B. took the point, Uzi in hand.

The corridor turned to the left like an L. J.B. paused at the angle, gestured for the others to wait and crept carefully out of sight. They could hear the muffled slapping sounds made by J.B.’s boots on the dust-filmed concrete floor.

The footfalls ceased. A latch clicked and the glow of light widened, dissolving the darkness. The air current increased in volume. They heard J.B.’s footsteps again, fast and hard. He was running. Ryan’s finger crooked tight on the trigger of his handblaster.

The Armorer sprinted around the corner. His normally sallow face was flushed with excitement, his eyes behind the lenses of his spectacles wide.

Panting, he called to them, “Come on! You won’t believe what I found!”

Chapter One

Several days later

They heard the screamwings before they saw them.

Ryan Cawdor whirled, his hand making a reflexive move toward the butt of the SIG-Sauer holstered at his hip.

Jak Lauren inclined his white-haired head to the west. “Swarm screamwings. Stirred by vibrations wag’s engine.”

Ryan looked behind him at the flat curve of black roadway fifty yards away. The Hotspur Hussar Armored Land Rover sat there, the powerful turbocharged V-8 engine idling with a muted throb. On the far side of the road, Krysty Wroth’s bright red hair shone through the underbrush like a torch. She was examining the shrubs, searching for edible berries. She hadn’t heard the high-pitched whistling shrieks floating up from behind the western hills.

The one-eyed man turned back to the wooded foothills, which were at least a quarter of a mile away, dotted with large bushy growths. The shrieks were rising in volume.

At his and Jak’s insistence, the wag had stopped so the companions could stretch their legs and relieve themselves after a six-hour drive. Ryan assumed J. B. Dix was inside the vehicle with Mildred Wyeth and Doc Tanner. At least he hoped so.

Jak jerked his thumb back toward the road. The scar-faced teenager’s lips were set in a grim line, his ruby eyes narrowed. “Better move. Screamwings on top us soon.”