Phantoms

wide open. At the same time, he jumped back, pointing his gun into the lab.
    It was deserted. Two rumpled decon suits lay on the floor, and another was draped over a swivel chair in front of a computer terminal.
    He went to the rear of the second lab.
    Tal said, “Let me do this one.”
    Bryce shook his head. “You stay back there. Protect the women; they don’t have guns. If anything comes out of here when I open the door, run like hell.”
    Heart pounding, Bryce hesitated behind the second field lab. Put his hand on the door. Hesitated again. Then pulled it open even more carefully than he had opened the first.
    It was deserted, too. Two decontamination suits. Nothing else.
    As Bryce peered into the lab, all the ceiling lights winked out, and he jerked in surprise at the sudden darkness. In a second, however, light sprang up once more, although not from the ceiling bulbs; this was an unusual light, a green flash that startled him. Then he saw it was only the three video display terminals, which had all come on at once. Now they went off. And came on. Off, on, off, on, off… At first they flashed simultaneously, then in sequence, around and around. Finally they all came on and stayed on, filling the otherwise unlighted work area with an eerie glow.
    “I’m going in,” Bryce said.
    The others protested, but he was already up the step and through the door. He went to the first terminal screen, where six words burned in pale green letters across a dark green background.
    JESUS LOVES ME—THIS I KNOW.
    Bryce glanced at the other two screens. They bore the same words.
    Blink. Now there were new words:
    FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.
    Bryce frowned.
    What sort of program was this? These were the words to one of the songs that had come out of the kitchen drain at the inn.
    THE BIBLE IS FULL OF SHIT, the computer told him.
    Blink.
    JESUS FUCKS DOGS.
    The latest three words remained on the screen for several seconds. It seemed to Bryce as if the green light from the display terminals was cold. As fireplace light carries a dry heat with it, so this radiance carried a chill that pierced him.
    This was no ordinary program being run on these displays. This was nothing General Copperfield’s people had put into the computer, no form of code, no exercise of logic, no systems test of any kind.
    Blink.
    JESUS IS DEAD. GOD IS DEAD.
    Blink.
    I AM ALIVE.
    Blink.
    DO YOU WANT TO PLAY 20 QUESTIONS?
    Gazing at the screen, Bryce felt a primitive, superstitious terror rising within him; terror and awe, twisting his gut and clutching his throat. But he didn’t know why. On a deep, almost subconscious level, he sensed that he was in the presence of something evil, ancient, and… familiar. But how could it be familiar? He didn’t even know what it was. And yet… And yet perhaps he did know. Deep down. Instinctively. If only he could dig inside himself, down past his civilized veneer which embodied so much skepticism, if he could reach into his racial memory, he might find the truth about the thing that had seized and slaughtered the people of Snowfield.
    Blink.
    SHERIFF HAMMOND?
    Blink.
    DO YOU WANT TO PLAY 20 QUESTIONS WITH ME?
    The use of his name jolted him. And then a far bigger and more disturbing surprise followed.
    ELLEN
    The name burned on the screen, the name of his dead wife, and every muscle in his body grew tense, and he waited for something more to flash up, but for long seconds, there was only the precious name, and he could not take his eyes away from it, and then—
    ELLEN ROTS.
    He couldn’t breathe.
    How could it know about Ellen?
    Blink.
    ELLEN FEEDS THE WORMS.
    What kind of shit was this? What was the point of this?
    TIMMY WILL DIE.
    The prophecy glowed, green on green.
    He gasped. “No,” he said softly. For the past year, he had thought it would be better if Timmy succumbed. Better than a slow wasting away. Only yesterday, he would have said that his son’s swift death would be a blessing. But not any longer. Snowfield had taught him that nothing was worse than death. In the arms of death, there was no hope. But as long as Timmy lived, there was a possibility of recovery. After all, the doctors said the boy hadn’t suffered massive brain damage. Therefore, if Timmy ever woke from his unnatural sleep, he had a good chance of retaining his normal faculties and functions. Chance, promise, hope. So Bryce said, “No,” to the computer. “No.”
    Blink.
    TIMMY WILL ROT. ELLEN ROTS. ELLEN ROTS IN HELL.
    “Who