by Chris Fox
“Yes,” Bridget replied without hesitation. “It eats at me. I was weak. I’ll admit it. I liked the attention, from both of them. And I love both of them. How fucked up is that? I can’t pick. I want them both. Now I have neither.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Sheila said, finally meeting her gaze.
“You mean that, don’t you?” Bridget asked, utterly shocked by the statement.
“You made a real mess of things, but we were friends for over a decade. You’re not a horrible person, Bridget. Maybe a little self-centered, but no one deserves what you’ve been through.”
“I—Sheila, I don’t know what to say. What changed your mind?”
“My health is deteriorating,” Sheila said, as if talking about the weather. “This was probably going to be my last dig, no matter what.”
“Cancer?”
“No, HIV. I’ve had it almost three years,” she admitted, using the wall to help her back to her feet. “I’m not going to die or anything, but the disease has really made me question my own mortality. My symptoms were mild until about six months ago, but since then they’ve been getting steadily worse. I can barely get out of bed a lot of days.”
“Sheila, HIV is treatable. You can get help,” Bridget said, eyes tearing up. She’d just regained her friend and felt like she was already losing her. “Can’t you talk to Mohn? There must be something they can do.”
“I’ve been to all sorts of doctors, tried all the latest medications. It does provide a lot of relief, but I’m tired all the time,” Sheila said, pausing. She cocked her head and gave a warm smile. “I’m not going to be able to do field work forever. I want to spend what time I have left doing the things I love. Learning and discovering, just like we always have. So that’s what I’m going to do. I just needed someone to know, and despite everything that’s happened, you’re still my best friend.”
“That means more to me than you’ll ever know,” Bridget said, overcome with emotion.
The door hissed a third time, popping open to reveal the soldier again. “Come on. I could get in serious trouble for this. You’re done here.”
Sheila turned to the man with a nod, one teardrop sliding down her cheek as she exited. She didn’t look back as the door closed, leaving Bridget in silence.
Bridget glanced up at the ever-present camera, shifting against the wall until she faced away from it. She carefully removed the bundle from under her gown, making very sure to interpose her body between it and the camera.
It was a pocket-sized leather-bound book, the sort of journal Sheila loved to use. A small letter was tucked inside. Bridget carefully removed the yellow paper, quickly scanning the contents.
Bridget,
I came to make peace today and hope I was able to do that. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find the words, so hopefully I did. That wasn’t the only reason I came to see you. I’ve learned some truly frightening things since we last spoke.
Using Blair’s notes and our work with Steve I have a pretty good understanding of the inner chamber now. I believe I’ve puzzled out why this exists. Something horrible is coming. I believe it’s tied to the Galactic Procession. Every 13,000 years something strange happens with our sun. I don’t know what or how, but this ancient culture warned that it could end all life on the planet.
They believe that werewolves were our only chance of survival. They refer to them as champions and that they’re our only defense against whatever catastrophe is coming. That’s why I had to see you. You’re one of them now, and if the ancients are right we’re going to need your help.
I’m doing my best to get you out. I’ve grown close with Jordan and am hoping to persuade him to aid in your escape. Until then sit tight, but be ready to move. In the meantime I’ve included all my research notes in case they’re useful. If nothing else, hopefully it will alleviate the boredom you must be feeling.
I’m sorry for everything that’s happened between us. I hope we get a chance to start over after all of this is done.
Your Friend,
Sheila
Hot tears rained on the page. Knowing that Sheila had forgiven her felt wonderful. Maybe she would have a chance to start over, assuming she survived whatever impending apocalypse was coming.
46
Moonlight
“You still take sugar, right? It’s in the cupboard above the coffee maker,” Trevor asked her, leaning against the island in the center of the kitchen. Liz nodded absently in Trevor’s direction, admiring the dark wood as she opened the cabinet.
“These are new,” she said, fishing out the small bag of white sugar and dumping a liberal portion into the heavenly black liquid filling her mug. “Did you install them yourself?”
“Yeah, I got tired of looking at the old ones. Pour me a cup too?” he asked, withdrawing his wallet and keys and dropping them on the counter. “I’ll fire up the grill. Coffee and venison isn’t exactly conventional, but given what you’ve told me, I’m guessing we’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
Blair entered the kitchen from the broad hallway leading to the front door. Liz could smell the soap from the bathroom on his hands, mingled with the pungent scent of sweat.
“Trevor, do you have a computer I can use?” he asked, oblivious to the conversation he’d interrupted. “I’d like to do some research on the glyphs in the pyramid.”
“Sure, my office is through that door on the right. Computer’s on the desk,” Trevor replied, accepting the mug that Liz handed him. He paused long enough for Blair to enter the office before turning back to her. “So, give it to me straight. What exactly do you think happened to you guys? Virus? Disease of some form?”
“We’ll have to get some blood work done to know for certain, but my gut says virus,” Liz said, leaning heavily on the counter behind her. Her vision swam, just for a moment. The feeling faded, sending a shiver down her spine as her skin itched the way it had in Peru, under the moon. She ignored it.
Trevor considered her words for several moments, sipping at his coffee. The soft hiss of an air conditioner came on behind him, quietly battling the warmth that had accumulated in the home over the last few hours. “Whatever it is seems to have altered your DNA at a fundamental level; it would have to in order to make the things you describe even possible. I’m guessing if we sequenced your genome, we’d find that it’s rewritten entire segments. But I have no idea how it inserted a wholly separate consciousness into your heads. That’s way beyond anything modern science has achieved. Into that woo-woo stuff you and Mom love.”
“Yeah okay, Agent Scully. You used to love it too,” Liz chided, sipping her own coffee. “Besides, doesn’t look so much like woo woo anymore, does it? Blair can read minds. If that isn’t woo woo, I don’t know what it is.”
“Okay, okay, you have a point,” Trevor said, delivering one of those boyish grins. “You and Mom owe me a big ‘I told you so.’ Listen, I have a friend that runs a small startup in San Francisco. They make microscopes that attach to your smartphone, and Erik owes me a favor. I can probably get him to send me one so we can do a blood test without the risk of bringing you guys out into public.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “That would be a huge help.”
“I’m hungry. How about you?” Trevor asked, setting down his coffee and replacing it with the platter of steaks. “Shall we take this outside while I grill?”
Liz had a moment of worry when she looked at the generous slabs of meat. Every horror movie she’d ever seen said that she should crave raw meat. She rose to follow him, leaving her coffee on the counter. The instant she stepped outside, something hot and angry flared in her belly, like cramps, only far, far worse.
The porch light came on, illuminating the back deck. The wooden planks had been stained the same color as the cabinets, and was now ringed by a newly installed fence. It stood nearly seven feet tall, enough to screen them from neighboring houses, had there been any. They were surrounded by shrub-covered hillside extending beyond the h
ouse. Her brother had the most precious commodity in Southern California—privacy.
Trevor opened a chrome grill large enough for an entire cow, setting the plate with the steaks on the platform built into the grill’s right side. He grabbed a tightly bristled brush and began scraping it along the grill.
“So you think it’s some sort of virus that was engineered by a prehistoric culture somehow advanced enough to understand genetics,” he said, glancing at her as he used a pair of tongs to move steaks onto the grill. “If that’s true, their choice of animals seems odd. Why wolves? Why not bears or tigers or something? Wolves are predators, but they’re hardly the most successful hunters in the animal kingdom.”
Liz’s freshman biology class supplied the answer. “At a guess? Canines have the most malleable DNA of any mammal. Almost every breed of dog was created in the last two centuries. You can radically alter a dog in just a couple generations,” she explained, pulling one of Trevor’s folding chairs toward the grill. She collapsed heavily into it. A tingling itch spread across the back of her neck. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. The moon’s fat crescent hung low over the eastern horizon, nearly touching a mountain in the distance.
“That’s plausible,” Trevor said, clicking the igniter. The grill lit with a soft whoosh. He was studying her the way one might an animal at the zoo. “So you mentioned that you could feel something in the moonlight. Do you feel it now?”
“Yes. It’s almost painful, like standing in the sun long enough to burn,” she said, glancing up at the offending ivory crescent. Was she experiencing the same sort of overload Blair had faced back at the border crossing? It would make sense.
Yes, Ka-Ken. You must feed, and soon. The voice startled and chilled her in equal measure.
“Now that’s definitely interesting,” Trevor said, pulling a Star Wars apron their sister Jessie had given him for Christmas around his neck and tying it behind his back. “All light is just a certain bandwidth of radiation. Plants use it for photosynthesis. We use it for solar power. There’s no reason whatever this virus is couldn’t use it as a power source. I suspect Erik might find chlorophyll or something very similar when we do your blood work. That still leaves the question of why moonlight instead of sunlight. Have you felt anything odd during the day?”
“Not so far. Neither has Blair. It always happens with the moon,” she replied, fidgeting in her chair. She just couldn’t get comfortable, and she was starting to feel nauseated. The symptoms were alarmingly close to what Blair had described. “That seems odd. Sunlight is a lot more plentiful than moonlight. If I were going to design a virus, sunlight would make more sense.”
“Every ray of light has a certain wavelength. Light reflected off the moon would have a different signature than that of the sun,” Trevor mused, deftly flipping the steaks. “You’re right that sunlight is a lot more constant than moonlight, but I think I might understand why moonlight would work better. If you absorbed sunlight, it would risk overload if you stood in the sun all day. Have you ever seen what happens to a battery you let charge too long?”
“Yeah, it melts,” Liz said, almost certain she was about to share the same fate as the hypothetical battery. She wobbled to her feet, right hand using the lawn chair for support. “I think I’m going to wait inside, out of the moonlight. I’m not feeling too well.”
“All right,” Trevor said, giving her a worried look as she stepped inside. She felt immediate relief, though she was still sick to her stomach. Her brother followed her to the doorway, tongs still clutched in one hand. “Here’s the thing. The light we see reflected from the moon is only one bandwidth. There are others we can’t see. Those can still reach you even indoors. So that will help, but it isn’t going to protect you entirely. If we need to, we can get you into the panic room. That should shield you from the bandwidths we can’t see.”
“I think that might be a good idea,” she said, doubling over in sudden agony as fire spread through her gut.
You MUST feed, Ka-Ken. Slay this one. If he is strong, he will rise to join you. If not, you spare him a fate worse than death.
I won’t, she thought back, leaning heavily against the wall just inside the sliding glass door.
You must. The male can bleed his energy with shaping. You cannot. If you do not feed, you will relinquish control to me whether I will it or no. You brim with power, and it must find release.
“Trevor,” she began, voice quavering. She was shaking uncontrollably now. Sweat poured from every pore, drenching her shirt in seconds. “Trevor, you need to get into your gun safe and lock the door, now.”
“Gun safe?” Trevor asked, stepping closer to the door. “Liz, you look like you need a hospital. You’re white as a sheet. Are you okay?”
“I think I’m going to shift. The last time that happened, I killed a man,” she said, sagging to her knees and cradling her gut. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. “Trevor, I can’t control myself when I shift. Please, get away. Quickly. Before it’s too late.”
Trevor flicked the knob on the grill, killing the heat. Then he darted inside, undoing his apron as he moved. He knelt next to her, placing a hand against her forehead. She could see in his eyes that he still didn’t quite believe that she was going to turn into a werewolf. Who could blame him? It was still an implausible story as far as he was concerned.
“Trevor, please,” she begged, back arching as the transformation began. Fire flooded her body as the beast seized control.
His eyes widened as he finally realized what he was seeing. Trevor rose unsteadily to his feet, pausing to watch her as the change took hold. Didn’t he understand how dangerous this was?
“Trevor, run!” she shrieked.
47
Gun Safe
Trevor was transfixed by the sight before him. Liz’s back arched, bones cracking and snapping as a low, horrifying wail burst from her throat. It warbled and changed, deepening into a howl. Her blouse and skirt split at the seams as her body expanded and changed, fur bursting from her skin like bad special effects in some B movie. It didn’t even look real. But it was.
He’d seen enough horror movies to know what came next. She would become a rampaging monster that would tear everyone and everything around her apart. If Trevor was still here when she’d finished her transformation, he was going to die. It was time to run, despite the fact that none of this should have been possible. He discarded logic, giving in to the primitive limbic system that had kept mankind’s ancestors alive for over three million years.
Trevor bolted up the hallway, past the office where Blair was working. He didn’t bother warning the anthropologist, because he figured Blair was safe. After all, Blair could just turn into a werewolf and fight back. Trevor didn’t have that luxury.
He skidded to a halt in front of the reinforced door leading to the garage, cursing himself for keeping the deadbolt locked. His keys were in the kitchen. He reversed course back up the hallway, skidding across the linoleum. He’d have fallen if he hadn’t caught himself against the wall with one arm. There, on the island. The slender ring with five keys, two for the house, one for the walk-in safe, and one for each vehicle. He seized them triumphantly, already turning when something large rose from the spot Liz had just occupied.
Covered in thick auburn fur, it stood on tree-trunk legs. The creature slouched, but its back and shoulders still knocked a shower of plaster from the high ceiling. Beady eyes of alarming amber landed on him, and he was shocked to see how human they appeared. The creature bared its fangs at him exactly the same way a dog would; then it flexed massive hands tipped with ebony claws. He was going to die if he didn’t move.
Trevor bolted back down the hallway, skidding around the corner past the refrigerator as the thing bounded after him. Each footfall tore furrows in the hard wood, but its enormous weight prevented it from finding solid footing. It careened into his refrigerator with a tremendous bang before he lost sight of it.
Several precious seconds later Trev
or reached the door to the garage. Trembling fingers fumbled at the lock, and he breathed a sigh of relief when the key slid home. He jerked the handle, pushing the door open and slipping inside the garage. A quick glance up the hall confirmed every nightmare he’d ever had.
The werewolf charged forward, ripping free another shower of plaster as its head smashed into the ceiling. It bounded toward him, and he barely had time to slam the heavy door before something massive crashed into it.
He inserted the key into the deadbolt, twisting it with a satisfying click. Would that even slow the thing down? He couldn’t assume that it would, though he certainly hoped so. The frame was reinforced steel, just like the front and back doors. A lot of his friends thought he was paranoid, but when you lived in such a remote place being targeted for home invasion was common. Even a SWAT team with a battering ram would take time to get through that door.
Now what? He surveyed the garage for options. The white ‘65 Mustang he’d spent the last two years restoring dominated one side. Several workbenches occupied the other. There were tools over there, from heavier hammers to a machete he’d brought with him on a hunting trip. None of that would slow down a rampaging werewolf.
Gun safe, maybe? It ran the entire length of the garage and was walled off with steel-reinforced concrete, a narrow steel door standing open at one end. His ex had demanded he build it because she’d been uncomfortable with the idea of guns in the house.
He’d designed it to keep things in, not out. It was a combination door, so even if the werewolf was smart, it wouldn’t have easy access. Once inside he’d be trapped, though. Would there be enough oxygen? He didn’t know. Trevor hesitated for an agonizing moment as something heavy thudded into the door behind him. The door shivered in its frame but held. He was running out of time.
Trevor darted into the gun safe, flicking the light switch just inside the door. Fluorescent light illuminated a gun collection he’d accumulated over his adult life, each weapon complete with the memory of both acquiring it and learning to fire it. He scanned the wall, considering which option might save him in the face of a life-threatening werewolf. Another hollow boom came from behind him, this one accompanied by the tortured shriek of metal. Shit.