Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  “I’d like a tour of the basement,” Chaney said. “I want to see what kind of equipment you’re housing.”

  “Of course, Marshal. I have nothing to hide. I can also provide you with a tour of the barracks and science facilities if you so desire. I assure that you will have no suspicions afterwards.” He lifted his wrist to examine his watch. “I still have a little time. If you like, we could do it now and get it over with.”

  “Right now is fine.”

  Hamilton exhaled, as if he were dealing with children that he must reluctantly indulge. “Very well, then. Though I doubt that you’ll be able to conduct a full inventory. No matter; we can complete it tomorrow.” He raised an arm to invite the tour. “We can begin now if you wish.”

  Chaney walked forward.

  Hunter caught a momentary grimace on the doctor’s face. A flash - less than a tenth of a second – that was subdued by the friendliest of smiles. “It will no doubt be brief because there is nothing to see,” he added. “Unless, of course, you enjoy skulking about seemingly endless rows of cardboard boxes filled with computer equipment, food, blankets, or replacement parts for vehicles. You can understand that, up here, so far into the mountains, we must remain quite self-sufficient. It is necessary to keep at least a six-month supply of everything available at all times.” He focused with the air of a busy man too long detained. “Could we begin immediately, Marshal?”

  “That’s fine with me.” Chaney nodded and looked at Brick. “Get a feel for the place. I can handle this.”

  Hunter turned his head to Ghost: “Guard.”

  Ghost rose on hind legs and put both paws on Tipler’s bed, staring down, panting. The old man laughed, and the great black wolf began pacing back and forth before the door opening. Nothing mortal was coming inside without permission.

  Hunter turned to Chaney. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go along. I wouldn’t mind taking a look around that place myself.”

  “Got no objections at all,” Chaney said, lifting the Weatherby .454 from the desk. He snapped open the breach to make sure two mammoth brass shells were chambered and closed it with a sharp iron click. Holding the weapon midway, in perfect balance, he said, “Let’s go, Professor. You’re the tour guide.”

  “I’m gonna stay with the professor,” Bobbi Jo said to Hunter alone. “And when the nurse returns I’m going outside to take up position. Probably on the roof.”

  “All right.” Hunter followed Hamilton from the room, but turned backwards for a single step—he didn’t know why—to see her staring intently after him. Then she moved her lips to frame a silent sentence and Hunter knew exactly what she said. With a slight surprise, he realized that he’d expected it.

  “Be careful. “

  Takakura and Taylor scanned the compound, roaming. They checked the fence at one point with a small piece of steel, laying one end on the ground and letting the other end fall over so that the current grounded out. A split second later the automatic breakers reset and they knocked the steel aside with a long section of a severed two-by-four—a safe thing to do because wood can’t conduct an electrical current—and resumed roaming.

  Taylor had spent most of the afternoon, or what time was left after his debriefing by army intelligence, arming himself for the expected battle. Two bandoleers of shotgun shells, at least fifty per belt, crisscrossed his barrel chest. A semi-automatic street-sweeper—a short shotgun with a cylindrical twelve-round magazine—hung heavily on a sling. And he had a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun in a hip holster. The side-by-side barrels were barely eight inches long; the stock had been sawed off and sanded to allow a firm and comfortable pistol grip. He also had a .50-caliber Desert Eagle semiautomatic on his right hip with clips attached to his combat belt. Night-vision goggles hung on an elastic strap from his neck.

  Takakura carried the katana on his back and the M-14 in his arms. He also was heavily armed, with a .45-caliber pistol on each hip and at least eight antipersonnel grenades in his pockets. He had used a thin strip of white tape to doubly secure each pin, thereby preventing the pin from being pulled prematurely. Although the tape made it twice as difficult to pull the pin, a man in combat, hyped on adrenaline and fear, might disregard it.

  Glancing down, Taylor noticed the combat trick.

  “Nice gig, securing pins like that,” he said. “Reminds me of Panama when we were hooching the worst bush you’d ever seen. And some green puke, about two months in, was trying to work his way through a jungle of ‘wait a minute’ vines. I was at covering distance right behind him, maybe fifteen feet, and he was almost through the wall when the pin on one of his grenades got jerked loose by a vine.” He cocked his head sympathetically at the memory. “Never did trust grenades after that.”

  Takakura grunted. “Precaution is always wise, especially in combat, where surprise is the last thing the dead realize. I suppose we will discover if we have taken enough of them.”

  “You really believe it’s coming? Tonight, I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Silent for a moment, Taylor then asked, “What makes you so sure? I mean, look around you.”

  Takakura lifted his eyes to the ceiling and angled them to the darkened hills outside the compound. A stygian cloak seemed to absorb the light rather than be illuminated by it. “It will come,” he frowned. “It comes for him.”

  “For Hunter?”

  “Yes,” Takakura said with subdued emotion. “For Hunter.”

  ***

  He had discovered the outside listening post by scent, disappointed that it had been abandoned. Then a distant, mournful howl carried through the night and he raised his head, laughing.

  Yes, the wolf he had slain with a single slashing blow, severing the head and consuming the brain just for the primitive pleasure of it, had been discovered by its mate.

  Killing was such sweet pleasure.

  Feeling again the physical release he had felt when the wolf’s body had fallen, so slowly, to the ground—its eyes blinking in shock as the head hung suspended in the air before it landed on a slope—he growled and turned back to his task, studying the structure.

  Wooden logs covered with a thick layer of dirt and brush would have concealed the bunker from a visual search, but human scent thickly marked the air.

  Only a small slit cut into the hill had allowed a narrow view. He knew that the entrance and exit would be in the back, also concealed. Yes, they were wise to withdraw within the safety of the fence, a fence higher than any it had yet encountered.

  Crouching in darkness three hundred feet from the compound, he saw the soldiers, dogs, guns, and armed vehicles, the heavily manned towers in constant movement.

  Frowning, he studied all that was here, memorizing the routine, the location of troops. With narrow red eyes he spied a large building located at the back. Even across the distance he could hear the drone of machinery as the machine powered the fence, the lights. Without the machines, they were helpless in the dark.

  Rising slowly, apelike arms hanging with a fullness of refreshed strength, he inhaled, and his mammoth chest swelled gigantically. Snarling, he prepared himself, rising on an internal tide of empowering rage, knowing this would be the most difficult of all.

  And yet fear did not enter his animal mind as he turned, loping high across the surrounding ridge, constantly searching for the tiny wires that had injured him once before, because he had not known the danger. And quickly he was close to the building that roared with the turning electrical thing that he would destroy.

  Creeping soundlessly across waist high bush, he moved in.

  ***

  “What’s this, Doc?”

  Chaney’s voice echoed across the near-silent underground chamber and Hamilton moved slowly toward him.

  “Oh, that is a backup electromagnetic monitor,” he answered. “We are trying to correlate any sunspot activity with the cha
nge in the tectonic plate shifts. So far, we have been unsuccessful in tracing any coordination. But it was an interesting theory, nevertheless.”

  Rising slowly, Chaney removed a crowbar from the wall. “Let’s have a look.”

  “Of course, Marshal, you are in authority here. Feel free to examine anything you wish.”

  In a minute Chaney pried off the wooden lip and removed the cushioning Styrofoam and cardboard. He didn’t lift it from the box, but felt the back, the front. Then he walked inside to examine the seemingly endless rows of food, fuel, spare parts, weapons, clothing. It was a virtual harbor of goods, and Chaney wore a displeased frown as he wandered about.

  On the far side of the room, Hunter was utterly still. He hadn’t moved more than thirty feet since he’d entered the lower level, though Chaney thought Hunter was also checking inventory.

  No, he hadn’t moved, nor did he plan to blindly wander the storage aisles looking for what he knew was not there. He was confident Hamilton would have never complied with their request if there were any evidence of guilt.

  For certain, whatever they were searching for would be better concealed. And so he turned his mind to role-playing the prey, attempting to think as Hamilton. It was a trick he used when hunting elusive animals; he hoped it would help him now.

  Think like a tiger ...

  Like a wolf ...

  Like a fox ...

  What did an animal do when it wanted to conceal something?

  He knew most of the answers without effort: An alligator would shove the body of its prey beneath a stump, allowing it to rot before it fed. A bear would cover his prey with dirt, all the while hovering nearby and eating the carcass at its leisure for days at a time. A fox would cover his food inside a log close to the den and bury it with leaves. But never too close, lest the dead prey lure rivals into a fight for possession of the hard-won sustenance. A tiger would simply drag his prey into a secluded location where he would bury it under leaves and eat for a week, never leaving the slaughter for more than an hour at a time. A quick review, and Hunter realized that the same instinctive practice was occurring again and again, though in varied form.

  Bury it.

  Yes ...

  Bury it!

  As Chaney opened another box before the patient and endlessly indulgent Dr. Hamilton—arms crossed in calm cooperation—Hunter placed a hard hand on the concrete floor.

  Cold, smooth, and ... something else ...

  He frowned as he studied it, wondering.

  Cold, smooth, and ... what?

  Time passed.

  Hunter scowled, unmoving, and concentrated. He closed his eyes, letting it speak to him, searching.

  Cold ... smooth and ...

  What did he feel?

  He shook his head, frustrated.

  Before he understood.

  Vibration.

  Hunter didn’t open his eyes, revealed nothing in his repose. Then, slowly, he raised his hand until only the tips of his fingers—a place where the nerves were clustered closer than any other place in the body—were touching lightly. He relaxed and closed his eyes, feeling, reading, waiting, and he noticed that the infinitesimal vibrations were rhythmic.

  So slight as to be unnoticeable to anything but the lightest touch, they continued without respite. And Hunter looked around, searching and wondering. Upstairs, he knew, the second story of this facility was fed electricity by massive generators housed in the tin shed at the back of the complex. Too far, he knew, to make the cement floor beneath him vibrate with the labor.

  No, this was something different. It was from the machinery housed upstairs or from something ... beneath.

  He opened his eyes to see Hamilton aiding Chaney once again in the examination of yet another ubiquitous military crate. In the space of a breath Hunter rose and walked toward them. When he was close, he spoke loudly to Chaney with a trace of carefully constructed frustration, of defeat.

  “I’m outta here, Chaney,” he said, waving as he turned away. “We’re not gonna find anything. I’m gonna check on Bobbi Jo.”

  Chaney scowled. “We haven’t had a chance to check this place out yet, Hunter! Why don’t you look on the other side? See if you can find anything that doesn’t have shipping orders attached to it!”

  “No time!” Hunter threw up a hand. “I’m going up top to make sure we’ve got our ducks lined up and check on Bobbi Jo! You can finish this!”

  He had walked ten feet when Hamilton called after him. “You needn’t worry about the elevator!” he instructed. “It will automatically stop on the first floor! I’m sure you will know your bearings!”

  Hunter said nothing—don’t overplay stupidity—in reply as he reached the elevator and entered, hitting the button and waiting as the doors began to shut. He had a moment of panic as Hamilton continued to stare at him and then the doors began to slide. At the same instant, Chaney said something to the doctor and Hamilton glanced down.

  Years of split-second decision-making gave Hunter the edge to slide with animal grace out the doors as they closed. He moved with the stealth of a panther, flattening himself against the end of a shelf along the wall. He was almost completely submerged in darkness.

  Carefully glancing over the crates, he saw Hamilton turn to the elevator. The doors were closed completely and for a second the doctor frowned, as if he had been denied the pleasure of observing Hunter’s departure. Then Chaney was moving again and Hamilton—ever too eager to assist—was beside him.

  They walked farther into the warehouse as Hunter bent and crept in the opposite direction, stooping occasionally to feel the floor. But the vibrations became weaker as he worked his way to the west end of the building, more powerful as he stalked toward the east. Concentrated on the task, he could almost hear the dim subterranean drone when he sensed shadows approaching.

  It wasn’t so much sight or sound as that nebulous and unexplainable “something,” warning of another’s presence that caused his face and narrow eyes to rise.

  Hunter had learned how to obey the sensation instantly and was moving slowly and silently between two huge crates that might have housed refrigerators when they rounded the corner where he had been. He heard rather than saw Chaney and Hamilton at the elevator cargo doors, and followed Chaney’s every word.

  “We’re not done here, Doctor,” he said with obvious displeasure. “We’ll put off the rest of the search until morning. But we’ll continue. So plan for it.”

  “Of course. Anything you wish, Marshal.”

  Then they were gone and Hunter emerged, gazing at the empty warehouse. Every fourth overhead fluorescent light remained lit, and Hunter assumed they were on all the time.

  Step by step, he worked his way closer to the heart of the vibration, eventually locating a section near the east wall. He knew only one thing: if it was a cooling system, it would require ventilation because it couldn’t circulate either cool or warm air without evacuating it as well.

  Searching the floor, Hunter found two small vents. But he discovered a much larger vent not far away. He knew the two smaller vents were for heating and cooling. This big one was something else: it was an exhaust vent for the floor below.

  It took him another ten minutes to move a heavy crate away from the wall, and he frowned grimly at the discovery.

  Holding his open hand before the ventilation grill, Hunter clearly felt warm air expelled from the lowest and unmentioned level of the research station—a level that the cooperative Dr. Hamilton had somehow forgotten to name. He waited, letting his senses speak to him, and found that what was below was scented with heat, electrical circuitry, paper, people, science . . .

  He shook his head, saddened at what he knew lay beneath.

  “No more secrets, Doctor,” he said aloud.

  ***

  A gigantic ray of light, so intense that he could feel the hea
t of it, passed over his head, but he did not move. Motionless behind an outcropping of rock, he waited patiently until it reached beyond him to starkly illuminate a barren slope.

  Closing on the deserted area behind the shed had proven more difficult than he’d anticipated. Four times already dogs on patrol had stopped and stared directly over him, but he knew their limitations, knew they could not see him behind the rocks, nor could they scent him because he was downwind. After a moment their handlers had prodded them to continue moving, though the patrols were so close together he could only gain a few precious feet before he was forced to lie still once more.

  Somewhere within him there arose a fear: a fear of the man. Then he shook his head to clear it and continued, crawling closer.

  He knew that what this body had once been was almost completely consumed. And he was pleased. Because for so long now, in the most un-expected moments, a flare of past awareness would spark white through the lower depth of his darkest being, remembrance of a consciousness not completely destroyed.

  It was of no matter. For in time he would completely overcome the vestiges of whatever this being had once been.

  He was already as pure physically as he had been in his lost age, though he yet continued to mutate, each change enhancing and enlarging his strength, endurance, or cunning—all the faculties that made him the greatest, and the purest, of all predators.

  Without effort he could catch the scent of a wolf when it was yet miles distant. And as he loped with unending endurance through the mossy dark forest, the leaf-strewn floor buried beneath countless seasons of decayed vegetation, he could effortlessly identify plants that he could barely see in the gloom.

  Yes, he knew which plants yet survived and thrived beneath the loam, and whether they would heal or hurt. He knew what animals had been this way, and when, and what lay dying or dead on the farthest surrounding hill. He could hear the faintest broken twig that filled the silence, and knew whether it was from wind or decay or another’s presence. There seemed no end to his strength, his rage, his glory, and he reveled in it.