"Zoos never make any sense,” Jessica retorted angrily.
Glumly, Richard shook his head. “No, George has a good point. What was its purpose? This island is hardly designed for the tourist trade."
"Maybe it was a sanctuary for endangered species,” I offered. “Or a kind of wildcard defense against invaders.” But both ideas sounded pretty lame.
"It could have been a quarantine pen for pets,” Mindy added.
George jerked a thumb. “Pets that required those kind of restraints?"
"Okay, maybe not,” she relented.
"Excuse me,” Father Donaher hesitantly spoke. “But wasn't there a coliseum sort of building inside the town?"
I scowled. That raised a few chilling possibilities. The old Christian-and-lions routine had occurred in the decadent period of ancient Rome just prior to the collapse of the empire. Maybe the same scenario was played here, with some magical Nero fiddling away while the island sank into the ocean? Sure fit the psychological profile of ‘The Masters'.
Thoughtfully, Richard munched on a thumbnail. “If it is for the coliseum, then there might be an underground transport system for moving the animals that we can use to gain entrance to the city."
That's my wizard. Always thinking.
"Must be what the ghost was talking about,” I said. “Let's go."
Thoughtfully, Donaher ran a hand over his endless forehead. “Okay, how do we get in?"
"Something wrong with the front gate?” I asked.
"What about the Cancer twins?” Mindy said, fingering the hilt of her sword. “With explosives banned, how are we supposed to take them out? Drown them in our blood?"
"Bah, I'll use a medium grade sleep spell,” Richard said, twirling his staff like a majorette's baton.
"Nonsense, a dose of BZ gas will do the trick,” George said confidently, tapping a military gas canister. “That'll have them so confused they may start dancing with each other, or order out for Chinese.” Good ol’ BZ gas was the unofficial party favor of the US Army.
"There are no detectable organic components,” Jess said, scrunching her forehead. “They must be either statues, or robots."
That stopped conversation for a second.
"Either could be the broken statue,” Mindy whispered, notching an arrow to the bow.
"Interesting,” Donaher said. “But if robots, programmed to do what, I wonder? Greet guests, or repel invaders?"
Jacking the cover on his mammoth assault rifle, George checked the indicators. Even from a meter away, I could see the digital display said 14,000 rounds remaining in the mammoth weapon.
"Who cares?” George announced confidently, sliding the cover to the former position. “We can take them easy."
"Barbarian,” Richard admonished. “Why not just walk past the things first and if that fails, try talking?"
None of us could really find a flaw in that plan.
"Well, Ed?” Donaher asked, extending a palm ahead of the group.
I shrugged. “A short life, but a merry one.” Experimentally, I rustled a bush to see what would happen. Nothing did. In attack formation, we exited the shrubbery and slowly approached the zoo, our boots silent on the fresh green grass. Keeping a careful watch on the crabs, our weapons at the ready, we came abreast and then passed beneath the towering crustaceans. At one point, I could have sworn that I heard a metallic creak, but neither seemed to have moved, so maybe it was only my imagination. Hope, hope, hope.
Moving through the dusty paths of the zoo, we gave the timeworn cages a cursory inspection. The place was spartan to the point of being crude. This was definitely no entertainment complex. Reminded me more of a prison. Chains and locks were everywhere, more than seemed necessary. The bars of the cages were barbed on the inside and the sanitary facilities were painfully obvious. The things in the cages were mostly skeletons covered with stripes of fur or bits of scale. However, a few were fully composed, merely desiccated corpses and a couple whole and alive.
Nasty hairy things, with a jointed proboscis and stiff wings, sort of like a cross between a bat and a vacuum cleaner. Strange that the animals were reviving, but no people yet. Slaves, or masters. Where were the damn inhabitants?
"Yuck,” Richard said, curling a lip. “Mosquitoes."
I blinked. By gad, he was correct. A hairy black mosquito. Warily, I stepped closer and that was when I noticed something odd on the floor of the cage. Took me a second to identify it, and when I did, the world became very quiet.
"Something wrong?” Mindy asked stepping close, her sword drawn.
"Let's kill all of these things before they finish healing and do a mass escape,” I said, checking the clip in my pistol.
"What? Why?” demanded Jessica confused.
Using the barrel of my weapon, I pointed. Laying scattered in the dirty rubbish of the cage were numerous bones, the top most clearly a human leg bone. Aside from the skull, the femur was the most easily identifiable piece of our skeleton.
The telepath gasped and I nodded.
"Bureau regulation
***43,” Father Donaher quoted, working the slide on his shotgun. “If any non-sentient creature has consumed human flesh it is regarded as too dangerous to let live and must be exterminated."
As a priest, Michael had very definite opinions on such matters. He never used his weapon on a live human. That would be murder. But blowing away monsters and hellspawn, Donaher considered a holy chore, and one he performed with relish.
"How do you know they're non-sentient?” Jess demanded.
It was a valid question that George answered by rattling the cage door. “These locks would stop a 400 pound gorilla, but not a twelve year old child."
"Agreed,” Richard said, the tip of his staff already starting to glow with power. “That thing this morning was only an animal. The sole reason it got the drop on me was ... um..."
"It caught you with your pants down,” Mindy supplied.
He almost smiled. “Literally."
Trying to cover every possibility, I exchanged the clip in my gun, for another in the belt ammo pouch. “A silver bullet in the head apiece should do the job."
"Want me to gather some wood and hammer a stake through their hearts?” George offered, pausing to blow a bubble.
"Too time consuming. We're on a tight schedule. But as a fillip, lets wire the front gate with Willy Peter just in case something survives."
Willy Peter, aka, white phosphorus, wasn't as hot as thermite, but it spread better and could fry anything this side of a cyborg whale. Now those babies are hard to kill.
"A Crispy Critter special, coming up,” George smiled, pulling wire and things from his shoulder pouch.
Mindy assumed a guard position while the man got to work. “The smoke will draw attention,” she reminded.
"Pressure switch,” George said connecting a wire to a battery. “Won't detonate unless the gate is moved."
"How long?” I asked.
"Take me five minutes."
"Check."
While the soldier prepared to rig the incendiary charge, the rest of us started moving systematically along the cages, our pistols coughing silver slugs into anything that resembled a head. Sometimes it took three or four shots to make sure we got the braincase.
The team separated to expedite things. There was little danger, we could easily see each other through the assembly of bars. Moving steadily along, I turned into an alleyway boasting a cage large enough to hold a flying elephant. In fact, I was actually wondering if it did, when the ground crumbled at my feet and I started to fall. Dropping my rifle, I made a desperate leap for the iron bars, but failed miserably.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
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CHAPTER TWELVE
Plummeting out of control, I yelled. Who wouldn't have? Shouting and cursing has never slowed me down a bit and I guess it never will, yet still I try.
Attempting to angle myself vertical in case I could grab something
, my weighty backpack pulled me over and I fell facing the dark top of the earthen shaft. As there was little else to do, I forced my muscles to go limp. Mindy taught it helped saved bones when you hit ground.
But it was a net of some kind that caught me, the strands stretching deep with the force of my drop. As the snare contracted, I tried to ride the forthcoming recoil upwards and land on my feet, but the net came with me and for a while I simply bounced up and down until the undulations ceased and I was still.
A dim luminescence pervaded the dark and faintly I could see that I was sprawled on a giant spider's web. Hoo boy, in spades.
With icy calm, I struggled to free myself, but nothing moved except my left arm, from the elbow down. Every finger of my right hand stuck to the web and no matter how hard I pulled the skin would not come loose from the resinous strands.
Craning my neck, which painfully pulled some hair free, I could see my rifle was dangling about ten feet away. Damn.
Waitaminute, my bracelet! What did I have? Flame Blast? Force Blade? Ah, no. I had Invisibility. Swell. Guess it had sounded like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, it wouldn't do spit against a spider. They saw in the ultra-violet spectrum. It would spot me in a hot second.
Using my left hand, I searched my body and took inventory. My pistol was holstered on my right hip, totally out of the question. But I could reach my front pants pocket, my medical kit and the ammo pouch for the M16. My combat knife in its reverse shoulder rig was just out of reach. What could I do with it anyway? Fight some two ton monster with a eight inch knife and my left arm down free from the elbow. Right. Afterwards I'd invent a cure for cancer and fly to the moon.
Horribly loud, my wristwatch began to beep. It was the gang trying for contact. Shaking my wrist I turned the thing off. It would only disrupt my concentration and the noise might attract unwelcome attention sooner than necessary. Besides, I couldn't reach the transmit switch and tell them where I was, so it was useless.
Quickly, I reviewed my situation and options. Of the top six possible courses of action, I took the most daring. Think big, be big, and I planned on living.
Being damn careful not to touch any of the strands with my left hand, I dug about in my pants pocket for my cigarette lighter. I didn't smoke, but the silly things had a thousand uses; burning through ropes, lighting fuses, emergency light source, etc. Plus, this was a Bureau lighter, turn the top and four seconds after you depressed the lever the lighter would blow your hand off. Very useful for distracting enemies, opening locks and getting rid of unwanted seasonal house guests.
It was part of what the Bureau called a city kit. Went along with things like a video camera inside a soda can, gas mask handkerchiefs and our lovely collection of pens. They squirted acid, launched tiny flares, were telescope/microscopes, gave a two minute supply of air, you name it. However, all that cool James Bond stuff was in New York. Seemed silly to haul along an exploding pen, when we were armed with bazookas and grenades.
Yet the lighter gave me comfort. If things got really bad, I could always use its special function and take the Bug Boy with me into the abyss. Beats being eaten alive. Or so I have been told.
Somewhere in the dark, I heard a scuttling noise and tried my best to ignore it. If I panicked now, it was the big boom. Keeping a firm grip, I turned the flame control wheel to maximum and thumbed the lighter on. Craning my hand, I aimed the four inch flame at my arm, and started burning the khaki fabric of my military jumpsuit. My goal was the cuff button. The twilled cloth resisted my efforts, but the button thread flamed nicely and in a couple of seconds the charred button fell away. The ventilation slit on the forearm gaped wide and I could now reach my knife. God, did I need that knife.
Pocketing the lighter, I released my combat knife and started to slit the fabric on my shoulder. Razor sharp, the knife did a good job, but my clumsy slices made me damn thankful I was wearing body armor.
Reducing the jacket to strips gave me more freedom of movement, but not enough, so I also cut the straps that supported my backpack. Caught in the web, it wasn't going anyplace.
That did it. Wiggling out of my jacket, I sat up with a heartfelt sigh. My clothing had been stuck to the spiderweb, not much of me. Using the lighter, I burned away the strands on my right hand. It hurt, but I could do repairs later. Drawing my pistol, I gave it a kiss and briskly unscrewed the silencer. No time for quiet now. Besides, the silencer retarded the muzzle velocity of the weapon and I might need every ounce of punch my 10mm could deliver.
Removing the half spent clip, I inserted a full one, a deadly mix of soft-lead dum-dums, armor piercing steel slugs and mercury tipped explosive rounds. Up yours, Mr. Spider.
I almost lost my sunglasses getting them out of my jacket pocket, but made a last ditch save below the web. Whew. Through them, the pit was even darker and nothing showed. I put them in my T-shirt pocket for safety. Okay, no magic, fine. Physical monsters I could handle by the dozen.
Twisting about, I began burning the strands holding my pants. My plan was to get out of here before the spider came home. Escape should be a cinch. My backpack held rope and a grappling hook shell for the grenade launcher. All I had to do was find secure footing and unless the top of the pit was out of range, I would be gone in a few minutes.
Without warning, the web vibrated. I looked everywhere and found the spider coming at me from the west. Its fat body was round and furry with tiger stripes. The head was an ugly collection of faceted eyes and snapping mandibles. I almost laughed. All this worry and the stupid thing was not much larger than a dog. No more than four feet tall.
Contemptuously, I leveled the pistol and let the beastie have it. The heavy slugs from the banging automatic hit the insect like sledgehammer blows, the plump body jerking with each impact. But no blood showed and as I stopped, the spider began to scuttle forward again, apparently undamaged. Dropping the clip, I reloaded and gave it some more to the same result.
Activating my wristwatch, I beeped the emergency signal, waited and then beeped again. Nothing. Yet my transmission had to be getting out, because their message got in. Suddenly, I had other considerations as the spider spat a long stream of a milky fluid towards me from its mouth. I ducked and the filaments shot overhead. From its mouth? That was not where spiders normally emit strands. Then as I watched, the eyes enlarged into glistening jeweled pools and it haltingly spoke in a foreign language. Shit. Magical. The damn thing must have been hiding, or possessed an aura so black I couldn't even see it in the dark.
In the back of my mind, I made a mental note to laugh at the remark once I got out of here. Correction, if, I got out of here.
Answering the spider in English, I tried to sound puzzled, arrogant and then commanding. Make it think I was a Master. The insect paused and then asked a question. Haughtily, I snorted in disdain. Obviously, not the proper response because the spider promptly charged.
The chugging 10mm automatic pistol forced it away, but each time the creature was getting closer. I might end fighting with the knife, for grenades were useless. Unless I timed a throw perfectly, the canister would fall through the web and explode below the bug doing no damage, or worse, kill me too.
No, wait. That was wrong. Shoving the pistol between my legs, I squeezed my thighs tight to keep it in place. Then with both hands I yanked off my shirt and tied a sleeve around the middle of an incendiary grenade. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or as the Bureau always says in their training films: make your problems work for you.
I dodged another stream of spider spit and pumped a full clip of bullets into the thing. Before it could recover, I twirled the shirt above my head and it let fly. The throw went true, the grenade arcing beautifully, my shirt spreading behind like a camouflage cape. As expected, the canister dropped through a gap in the web, but the shirt caught on the sticky strands. With a jerk, the grenade came to a halt and hung there only a foot below the web.
Curious, the spider paused for a precious moment to stare at t
he dangling bomb, so I cried out in pain and went limp.
Instincts are hard to fight. Eagerly, the insect raced towards the clearly helpless prey and the Willy Peter grenade detonated into flame. The shock wave knocked me back and my right arm hit the web again.
Covered with white phosphorous, the flaming spider screamed in a high pitched shriek and raced straight at me. Switching the pistol to my left hand, I gave it the clip. But the burning bug dashed right by and slammed into the wall with a sickening crunch. Its eight legs weakly clawing at the dirt, the terrible torch limply slid down to hit the floor—which from the light of the fire I could see was about ten feet away. Oh brother.
The web was burning, so I had to make haste. Holstering the pistol, I used the lighter to cut the major strands supporting me and I fell to land on my feet. Yes! In a circle of flame, the heavy assault rifle above ripped loose. Moving fast, I made the catch. Then using the lighter, I cleared off what few pieces of web were still attached. It was gummy, and hot to the touch, but in working condition.
Over by the wall, the spider was still feebly moving, so I thumbed a HE shell into the grenade launcher and blew the stubborn corpse to bits. Bouncing off the wall of the pit, the burning head rolled to my feet and took a snip at my boot. Oh give me a break. I stitched the head with a burst from the machine gun and then stomped on it with my Army boot for good measure.
Satisfied that super-bug was finally deceased, I located my backpack and started uncoiling the rope for the climb to the surface.
* * * *
Struggling out of the hole, I elbowed my way onto the dusty ground and rolled over to safety. Whew. Getting to my feet, I brushed the dirt from my T-shirt and looked about. Nobody was in sight. Something important must have taken them elsewhere. I tried my radio. Again, nothing.
Holding the cut straps of my pack in one hand, I keep my rifle ready and walked out of the dead end scanning the cages. Moving to the front gate I found a spent gas canister laying on the ground. Not our brand. Empty shells and brass casings were scattered everywhere. A blast crater spoke of explosives, and a charred zigzag indicated a lightning bolt. Amid the wreckage were strips of bloody cloth and Mindy's supposedly indestructible sword, broken into bits.
Judgment Night [BUREAU 13 Book One] Page 15