Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  Hunter was shocked that it was hesitating at all. But there was obviously an unexpected measure of intelligent cruelty buried in that primitive mind, enjoying his fear.

  “How can you ... how can you speak?” Hunter asked, watching it sharply as it lifted taloned hands.

  “Humans,” it said, laughing, and Hunter perceived that its vocal cords were never designed for this manner of articulation. “You are all ... so helpless.”

  Shifting his foot less than an inch toward the edge of the ledge, Hunter tried to engage whatever mind it possessed. “Why did you kill those people?”

  “Because they are prey. You … are prey. You have always been prey.”

  That left nowhere to go; Hunter tried something else.

  “So where did you come from?” he asked, closely watching its eyes. “You haven’t always been here. I know that much. Before you kill me, you can at least tell me that.”

  “From inside you.”

  Hunter assumed his shock must have been revealed.

  It laughed, genuinely amused.

  “Oh, yes,” it whispered. It held up its talons. “Look at these hands. Monstrous ... are they not?” Dark laughter. “What would your hands be like if you had my freedom? My strength! My power!” Silence. “Let me tell you. Then you would be like me! Yes! What do you see when you look at me? What do you see?” It nodded with a whisper, “You see yourself.”

  Hunter shook his head, almost brought into the conversation, though his mind was flying behind his calm countenance.

  “I would never be like you.”

  “You are already like me,” it rasped, bending as if to charge. “The beast within you ... is all that I am. You think you are so noble – so righteous. But you are nothing more than me beneath what you call ‘human.’ ‘ Its laughing found expression in a grating growl. “Yes, I am what you truly are. And you know it’s true ... I am only what you are deep inside ... what you fear you are. What you know you are.”

  Hunter’s foot was at the edge.

  “You’re insane,” he said, calm. “Listen ... listen carefully to me: Let me take you in safely. We will not hurt you. But if you don’t come with me, others will come for you. More men. More weapons. You are strong. But they will hunt you down. You can’t beat the entire world. Sooner or later, they will corner you. And they will kill you. Don’t be insane.”

  Roaring in a black and measureless mirth, it threw its head back, lost in the glory of its matchless might. “No, no ...” It lowered its head, smiling malevolently. Then it exhaled, releasing an impression of terrifying power. “No ...not insane . . .”

  Hunter remembered what he had discovered at the research station, what he had suspected all along with the repeated attacks. Take a chance, he thought.

  “What are you searching for?” he asked, giving no indication that he was split seconds from making a desperate attempt at escape. It stared at him a long moment, as if Hunter had abruptly distracted it from its intended thoughts.

  “The other,” it rumbled.

  Hunter stared. “The other? The other ... the other one like you?”

  The red eyes dimmed. “Yes.”

  Silence.

  “And ... where is the other one like you?”

  The fanged visage seemed to withdraw, somehow, within itself. The alien glow in its scarlet eyes verged on madness.

  “I must find him. I must ... find him.”

  “Why?” Hunter never expected a chance question to carry him this long.

  “To be complete.”

  A strange, wild theory struck Hunter. “Who did this to you?” he asked, himself incredibly caught up for a split second. He stared intently with the question, as if to read the truth in its eyes. “They did this to you, didn’t they? They made you into ...this. You were a man, weren’t you. And now ...you’re this.”

  A blazing roar of laughter caused the corded neck muscles to bulge like hot iron. Hunter saw the veins, twice as thick as a man’s, pulsing fiercely with that savage blood, and then it stared upon him once more, seeming to revel in the garish moment of mirth.

  “Foolish, foolish mortal,” it whispered with spite. “No ... they did not do this to me ... I did this to me!” Its chest rumbled with a strange growl. “I had the power to become a god and so … I became God!”

  Now, with true horror, Hunter understood.

  “What was your name?” he asked, somehow enlivened with an even sharper revulsion. He couldn’t imagine that this monstrosity, with all its viciousness and blood thirst, had once been a human being.

  “My name ... was Luther.”

  “Luther ... why did you do this? You’re not a god. Nobody lives forever.

  Fangs parted in laughter, but it was silent. No sound, not even breath, whispered forth for a still moment.

  “To become as them” it answered finally, with a short bark of laughter. “To become as god on the earth. Unkillable. Because I am the strongest. Yes, the strongest. Nothing can destroy me. And I will live forever.”

  It was insane.

  Hunter knew he couldn’t reason with it.

  “So you sacrificed your humanity for this,” he said, edging toward the drop. But there was a trace of contempt. And remarkably, it noticed.

  It smiled, and taloned fingers clicking once in that eerie, uncanny flexing that made them flicker and relax. Although subtle, it was horrifyingly threatening.

  Hunter knew he was out of time, it was about to attack. Almost because he had to know, because he knew how this would end, he said what he truly felt.

  “You’re an animal now, Luther. Not a god.”

  Hunter steadily held its contemptuous stare.

  As it paused, Hunter suddenly saw Bobbi Jo, the rest, moving silently from the far end. His heart raced but he concealed his alarm. He raised his eyes, measuring; they would need fifteen seconds at a full run to clear the tunnel. He had to stall it for at least ten.

  It shook its head, and Hunter could sense something volcanic building within it; a tightening of its chest, the slight rising of the enormous shoulders and an almost invisible shift of balance. It didn’t come closer, but it was only seconds away.

  “If you only knew the power,” Luther growled, despising. “You consider yourself ... human. Not ... animal. But I am more human than you. I am only what you are ... in the darkness. I am what you hide in the light. I did not lose my humanity. My humanity is purer, and stronger, than yours. Because I do not hide what I really am.”

  Bobbi Jo and the rest were almost directly beneath, and the creature seemed not to have yet noticed. He was too involved with Hunter.

  “I only wanted you to know this,” Luther continued, and breathed deeply, as if the intellectual labor of speech had fatigued it. “I will kill you. I will kill all of you. And I will live long. Far, far longer than men. And when your children are dead ... I will still rule this world ...”

  Bobbi Jo and the rest passed beneath.

  “Now,” it said, smiling, “you die.”

  “One last thing!” Hunter shouted, knowing he had to demand its full attention. “I want you to know something!” It paused.

  “This!” Hunter roared, cocking and firing the Marlin in a single one-handed motion.

  The creature recoiled, almost as much from the blast of light as the impact. Hunter leaped into him, viciously swiping across its ribs with the Bowie and then descending into the darkness.

  He kicked the wall to send himself across, striking the granite hard, and again kicked to take another four feet out of the fall by bouncing back, and then he was sliding, falling, lashing out once with the Bowie for a grip—a terrific stabbing blow that struck sparks from the granite, grinding, before he crashed numbingly hard.

  He was dimly aware of torches vanishing at the far end of the tunnel— they understood, were running. Then he was on
his feet, ignoring the numb feeling in his side, staggering forward knife in hand as a colossal weight crashed onto the path behind him with a vengeful roar.

  Light was before Hunter, the end of the passage. He pulled the cord on the satchel: five seconds!

  He heard it charging with the force of a rhino.

  “Shoot it!” he screamed.

  Instantly Hunter dropped and in the next heartbeat five .50-caliber rounds from the Barrett laced a destroying path down the crevice, powering above Hunter’s prone form. He heard them hit with a sound like an ax being buried in flesh and then he was on his feet again, running.

  Hunter threw the satchel as he exploded from the tunnel and violently grabbed Bobbi Jo around the waist.

  “Everybody get clear!” he screamed.

  Holding her tight in his arms, Hunter leaped far to the side, carrying her. She screamed as they landed on a downward slope, and he kept them rolling, gaining distance.

  The rest had moved as one; no questions.

  An eruption of flame like a dragon’s wrath thundered from the entrance. The blast flattened them to the ground grinding and rumbling, punishing.

  Smoke, trembling ... echoes.

  The light was gone—the spectacular red-orange and crimson that Hunter had seen through closed eyes—to gray silence, a ringing stillness in deafened, superheated air. Clouds of black rolled from the tunnel.

  Bobbi Jo, still holding her sniper rifle, didn’t move. Suddenly concerned, Hunter bent over her, gently removing a lock of hair from her face. His voice was soft. “Hey ...”

  Her lips trembled. “Jesus,” she whispered. “Jesus ...”

  Hunter smiled slowly, hand on her shoulder, before he looked over the slope of the bank, squinting into the burning smoke. The professor was far to the side, safe, and Takakura was lying atop him, covering the old man’s body with his own. Wilkenson was on his back, clearly stunned, not recovering.

  But Taylor was already on his feet, peering cautiously into the crevice, shotgun ready. Then he saw Hunter’s concentrated frown and shook his head: nothing there.

  Nodding, Hunter lifted Bobbi Jo to her knees and she raised a hand, slowly rubbing her eyes. “Oh ...man,” she whispered, shaking her head. “That was ... way intense. I should have been a plumber ... or something.”

  Hunter laughed lightly. “Yeah. Or something.”

  Looking at the roiling blue-black cleft in the cliff, she added, “Did we get it?”

  Hunter’s smiled faded slowly. “I don’t know. Would have been hard to survive. Maybe.”

  “Yeah?” She struggled to her feet and walked to the top of the slope, letting the Barrett hang on the sling. She stared into the passage a moment. “How could it have survived that?”

  “I don’t know,” Hunter answered dully, glancing at Takakura, who now knelt like a boxer waiting out a count. The Japanese shook his head angrily.

  Hunter continued, “It couldn’t have escaped the explosion. It was too close. Almost on top of it. But it might heal up faster than we expect. It’s already healed up from what we did to it last night. I could tell that much when I saw it.”

  “How close did you get to it?” Taylor asked.

  “Too close.” Hunter picked up his Bowie from where it had fallen, wiped the blade on his grime-smeared pants. He knew they needed to move soon. For the moment, he didn’t feel his wounds much—a gift of the high levels of adrenaline coursing through him. Hunter knew this pain block was part of an involuntary survival mechanism and he couldn’t consciously turn it on any more than he could shut it down. He also knew it wouldn’t last more than an hour or two before he would be hobbling in agony. They had to get to the Blackhawk, and quickly.

  “Can the professor be moved?” he asked Takakura.

  “Hai.”

  The stoic Japanese had gained his feet, sword held hard in his strong right hand. Then, casting a single glance at the cleft, he sheathed the awesome weapon without looking. “We have no choice. He will die if he does not receive medical attention.”

  Time to move.

  Hunter lifted one end of the stretcher and Takakura the other, and with Taylor at point, they began moving forward. Bobbi Jo and Wilkenson were rear guard as they began their last walk through soundless black hills inhabited by the most terrible of all nightmares and fears.

  He crawled, twisting and writhing on rotten leaves, coughing, gasping, dazed and breathless. He rolled down a short slope, found himself up against rock and water, his mind alive with fire and pain.

  He remembered crawling on cold dirt, rising, falling, unable to cease moving because of the pain. He was blinded and he stumbled, roaring and striking in rage until he fell again, not to rise.

  Now he lay in shadow, staring up without seeing until he remembered his strength. And with memory his hands closed, pain lancing his body as the claws touched boiled flesh. He screamed, and screamed again, twisting his head in rage and frustration before rolling to a knee and stumbling on, unable to remember ...what?

  As the hours passed he sensed a lessening of the pain, as he had vaguely expected, and as he felt the lessening he remembered more and more, but his strength was insufficient. He stumbled over a root and rolled down the hill where he now lay, breathing heavily.

  His deep-born animal mind told him to rest, to drink, to wait, and, with dark, to kill and eat and heal. So he lay silent, letting his body do what it was so magnificently designed to do. And within hours, he knew, he could rise to feast again, restoring his strength.

  Then he would go back, and he would kill them.

  He would kill them all.

  ***

  It was ridiculously easy to enter the professor’s town house. Chaney walked through it, impressed by the rich mahogany desk and bookshelves in the den, the living room’s light-brown leather couches.

  The kitchen and dining room were full of black-lacquered hardwood and stainless steel. Chaney thought that the professor may have spent too much time in the lab.

  He found an extensive amount of health food, herbs, vitamins and a full array of prescription medicines on the kitchen shelves and in the refrigerator. He moved to the bedroom.

  It was even more impressive than the den, with a huge oak four-poster bed covered with a dark blue spread. He walked over to the bed, opened a drawer in the nightstand. He found a book on nutrition, a flashlight and a gun.

  Brow rising slightly, he picked it up; a Smith and Wesson .38-caliber revolver with a four-inch barrel. With his gloved hands Chaney opened the cylinder, found six hollow-point rounds. He put the gun back and looked around again. Then he searched the closet, found a number of dark suits, blue, black or gray. All expensively tailored.

  In a corner of the closet he found some mountaineering gear. Well-used crampons, an ice ax, expensive Gore-Tex jackets, masks, a helmet, gloves, pants, boots—enough gear for a serious expedition in the Arctic.

  Moving into the den again, he examined the bookshelves. He searched by sections: philosophy, classical literature, modern literature, history separated by epoch, anthropology, archaeology, a large selection of medical journals, catalogued indexes of medical periodicals, a smaller section comprising medical and foreign language dictionaries, and finally reference manuals and biographies.

  Chaney perused the wall and occasionally opened a book to glance through it, but despite the range of interest apparent here, he found nothing on biological warfare, military research or its history. He was about to walk away when something caught his eye.

  He saw the slightest sliver of yellow protruding from a magazine in a binder. He removed it from the shelf: North American Anthropology, June 1975.

  Chaney opened it to the yellow bookmark and studied the pictures first. They revealed a creature classified as Homotherium.

  The illustration featured a skeleton of this ferocious-looking beast that looked to
be equal parts man and saber-toothed tiger. It was standing on hind legs, forelegs reaching down to its knees. Its fangs, incredibly long and deep-set in the skull, were viciously distended. Alongside the skeleton was a fleshed-out and rather spectacular portrait of what it might have looked like. It seemed exquisitely designed for fighting, for predation.

  Chaney was impressed.

  That’s what guns are for, he mused.

  He read the article slowly, wondering if it related to the case. He read the caption beneath the skeletal display: “This body of a Homotherium, one of the rarest of all prehistoric predators, was discovered on Alaska’s North Slope in 1974 by an Idaho archaeological team. Remarkably preserved, it was discovered beneath the body of an early relative of Homo sapiens that scientists have so far failed to classify. Experts believe the second set of bones belongs to a distant cousin of Neanderthalis sapiens, which possibly migrated from Siberia to Alaska in 12,000 B.C. across islands in the Bering Strait.”

  Chaney looked again at the photo of the excavation. It was still clear and had lost little detail over the years. Then he glanced at the reconstructed model of the creature and back at the skeleton as it lay in the ground. Back and forth, he studied the two photos a long time. He couldn’t find a photograph of the second skeleton that had been uncovered with the tiger-like beast.

  “This thing was found beneath the body of a man?” he asked aloud. “What does that mean?”

  He listened to the steady drone of traffic outside the town house, kept staring at the pictures, perused them all, read the article again. His mind kept coming back to the second skeleton, which wasn’t mentioned anywhere but the caption. And then something caught his eye.

  The skull.

  Chaney turned the magazine in his hands, as if he could get a better angle. He couldn’t. He moved it directly beneath the light, angling it so there wasn’t any glare, and lowered his face only inches from the page. And he noticed something intriguing.

  The entire skeleton of the Homotherium, almost complete and undisturbed, was intact. Only two ribs had been broken by the pressures of the glacier. But the skull had a deformed, strange indentation to it, and splintered cracks trailed down the temporal regions as if the head had exploded from the inside. It wasn’t the kind of damage that would have been caused by crushing, Chaney knew enough about pathology to determine that.