Necroscope 4: Deadspeak Read Free Page A

disappeared. Not only from England but from the face of the Earth. Indeed, entirely out of this universe!

 
     
     
    Three: The Source
    I N 1983 IN THE U RALS, THERE OCCURS THE P ERCHORSK I NCIDENT: an “industrial accident” according to the Soviets, but an accident of some magnitude. In fact the Russians, seeking an answer to the USA’s proposed “Star Wars”, have built and tested a laser-type weapon to create a shield against incoming missiles. The experiment is a failure; there is a blowback in the weapon; in the deeps of the Perchorsk Pass havoc is wreaked as the fabric of space-time itself receives a terrible wrenching. The world’s intelligence agencies, including INTESP, are interested to discover what Moscow is hiding up there under the snow and ice and mountains—curious to know what, exactly, the Perchorsk Projekt really is or was.
    A year later, and something (a UFO?) is tracked from Novaya Zemlya on a course which takes it west of Franz Josef Land and on a beeline for Ellesmere Island. Mig interceptors have been sent up from Kirovsk, south of Murmansk. The “object” is two miles higher than the Migs when they catch up with it, but it sees them, descends and destroys them. Their debris is lost in snow and ice some six hundred miles from the Pole and a like distance short of Ellesmere. A USAF AWACS reports the Migs lost from its screens, presumed down, but hotline Moscow is curiously cautious, even ambiguous: “What Migs? What intruder?”
    The Americans, angrily: “This thing is coming out of your airspace; if it sticks to its present course it will be intercepted, forced to land. If it fails to comply or acts hostile, it may even be shot down.”
    And unexpectedly: “Good!” from the Russians. “We renounce it utterly. Do with it as you see fit.”
    Two USAF fighters have meanwhile been scrambled up from a strip near Port Fairfield, Maine. The AWACS guides them to their target; at close to Mach 2 they’ve crossed the Hudson Bay from the Belcher Islands to a point two hundred miles north of Churchill. The AWACS is left behind a little, but their target is dead ahead at 10,000 feet. They spot it …
    … And take it out—no questions asked—one look at it is enough reason to fire on the Thing! Equipped with experimental air-to-air Firedevils, the USAF planes succeed where the Migs paid the price. The thing burns, blows apart over the Hudson Bay, crashes to earth. The AWACS has caught up, gets the whole thing on film. Eventually British E-Branch is invited (a) to a picture show, and (b) to offer an educated opinion … a guess … anything will be appreciated.
    E-Branch keeps its expert opinion to itself—for the sanity of the world! Reason: the thing from Perchorsk was obviously similar— very similar—to the monstrosity that Yulian Bodescu bred in his cellars, also to the Thibor Ferenczy remnant burned on the cruciform hills of Romania. Except that by comparison they were pigmies and this one was a giant—and armoured! In a nutshell, it was a thing of vampire protoflesh, and E-Branch suspects that the Russians at Perchorsk made it: an incredible biological experiment which perhaps broke free of its controlled or test environment! This is one theory, at least. But not the only one. E-Branch contrives to put a contact inside the Perchorsk Projekt to act as a spy and telepathic transmitter. Before he is discovered they learn enough to convince them of the world-threatening evil of the place, even enough to cause them to re-establish their old contact with Harry Keogh.
     
    It is 1985. Eight years since Yulian Bodescu died and Harry wrecked the Chateau Bronnitsy, eight long years since his half-deranged wife and her necroscopic child fled, apparently right out of this world. And ever since then he’s been looking for them. They are not dead, for if they were the teeming dead would know it and likewise Harry Keogh. But if they’re alive … then Harry no longer knows where to search. He has