Free Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers by Rusty Williamson Page B

and Harrington were on duty and had tried staying in
the warm vans and watching from the cameras, but after dozing off several times,
they decided the freezing weather would keep them awake and went outside. They
sat under the tarp drinking coffee from styrofoam cups and watched the new
development—a large tube, fifteen feet in diameter, had started growing
horizontally out from mid-way up the side of the 150 foot dome. The tube seemed
to be made of concrete with tinted glass windows on its sides. The tube’s
construction was moving much faster than the dome had – they could actually see
the thing growing. Leewood went for pizza, and after dinner, they noticed that
the tube, after reaching a length of 100 feet, had angled downwards.
    By midnight the rain/hail was coming down so hard they could
barely see. They retreated to the van where infrared cameras confirmed that the
tube had reached the ground. By 1:00 AM the downpour had let up a little and
they had ventured back outside. A small room had formed on the ground at the
end of the tube and by 1:30, a door was visible at the end and confirmed what
they had both hoped, that it was the entrance to the dome.
    Harrington ventured into the frozen rain for a better look. The
freezing rain burned her face and stung her eyes while the two-foot snow drifts
that had turned to shush crunched under her rubber boots. In between the drifts
she found herself slipping on the ice. Eventually she made her way along the
edge of the force field to the closest point to the newly built room and
studied it. To get a better look, she walked forward intending to push into the
force field as far as she could. That was when she discovered that the force
field was gone. And that was when the door at the end of the tube opened.
    It was too cold to talk so she just clicked her mic rapidly
half a dozen times.
    Leewood got the message, “I’m coming.”
    The hail started pouring down again and she could just barely
see Leewood scrambling out to her, encountering the same difficulties she had. When
he arrived, she told him what had happened with the force field dropping and
the door swinging open on its own. They looked at each other and back at the
open door. Harrington shrugged, “Looks like an invitation if I ever saw one. Should
we wake the others…get some backup?”
    “Not yet. They’ll only want us to wait for them and I’m tired
of waiting.”
    “I hear that.”
    They walked to the door and entered. Inside it was warm and
dry. Before them was a moving ramp. They got on and it carried them up about 150
feet to where the tube leveled out. From there it was about a 100-foot walk to
another door which entered the dome itself. This door was round, made of metal and
looked heavy. A rubber like substance around the edges sealed it. To the side
was a button lit by a green light. The door opened. It was several feet thick
and it slid out and then rose up out of the way. They looked at each other and
hesitantly proceeded.
    Inside was a room that extended out for about fifty feet. At
the far end on the right were two rows of seats facing left. They counted ten seats
in all, two rows of five. What they faced was an unusual window on the left
side. It was about fifteen feet wide and started a few feet from the ceiling. It
extended down to the floor and continued across the floor for about eight feet.
A green glow came through the window from the inside of the dome beyond.
    Harrington and Leewood slowly moved forward. As they got
closer they noticed that the window was made of extremely thick glass encased
in thick rubber. When they reached the window and looked out, they could see
the inside of the dome which was brightly lit and bathed in green. Centered on
the floor below them was a strange mound about twenty by thirty feet, and
perhaps thirty feet high. It was a complicated structure and they quickly recognized
it from the artist’s conception of what Adamarus had described while under
hypnosis.