Shadow Dragon

by Horton, Lance

  Shivers wracked his body. He turned up the heater but left the defroster off, preferring the privacy the snow offered.

  He took a deep breath, and then pulled out his cell phone to call Rochelle.

  CHAPTER 73

  When Busey came to, he knew he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. He knew, in fact, that he was in Montana, but it took him a few moments longer to figure out just how he had come to be where he was now, which was completely in the dark. His neck was stiff and sore, and his head was pounding. He reached up and felt his throat, which was badly abraded and sensitive to even the slightest pressure. He remembered his display going crazy just before he was struck from behind, and he seemed to remember the sensation of choking, but everything else was a blank. He did remember the briefing about the creature and its lethal tail, and he realized he was lucky to still have his head at all.

  His helmet was gone, which made it impossible to see in the dark without the night-vision visor, but he could tell enough to know he was in some sort of cave or cavern. There were no stars overhead and no frigid winds blowing across his face. From somewhere far away, he thought he could hear the slow plink … plink … plink of dripping water. He reached back for his pack and flinched from the pain that wracked his entire body. His left leg was pinned beneath him in an awkward position that told him it had suffered a serious break. He tried to roll over, and the shooting pain in his right ankle told him that it was broken as well.

  A strange clattering sound like that of sticks and twigs being dislodged accompanied his movements. The ground beneath him was spongy and wet. The entire place was permeated with the smell of limestone, but the overriding odor that burned in his nostrils was the scent of ammonia mixed with the sickening, rotten smell of what he assumed was a dead animal.

  Gingerly, he managed to work his pack free from beneath himself, and he dug about blindly within it until he managed to put his hands on several of the flares and the transponders. He almost laughed out loud with relief. Even without his helmet and its built-in locator, there was still a good chance that Ainsworth and the others would be able to pick up the signal from the transponders and rescue him.

  He shoved all but one of the flares into a pocket on the leg of his suit and then snapped off the end of the other one. A dazzling, blue-white light sprang to life, hissing and crackling. He tossed it a few feet away to illuminate as much as the area around him as possible. He squinted, momentarily blinded by the sudden light. As his eyes adjusted, he began to take stock of his situation.

  As he had expected, he in was in some sort of cavern. He could make out the rough stone surface some fifteen feet away, which rose above his head. He was in the center of the room lying on top of a mound of stones and branches, decaying leaves, and pine needles, all of which was covered with a layer of putrid, black sludge. But then he saw more.

  Bones.

  What he had thought were sticks were bones in most cases. There were shattered tibia and fibula and femurs, exposed pieces of crushed rib cages, fractured and broken skulls, antlers and horns and claws and teeth and countless other shards and splinters too small to identify. There were black clumps of matted fur and wool and hair, the remains of dogs and goats and deer.

  And humans.

  He nearly puked at the sight of a severed arm, its bloated, purple flesh covered with writhing maggots. A silver wedding band was still on the ring finger. He tried to push himself away, sending paralyzing currents of pain shooting up his leg and throughout his body.

  He rolled over to take the weight off his left leg, and with his arms and his right knee, he began clawing and scrabbling across the pile of bones and feces, desperately struggling to escape the carnage, but everywhere he looked, death and decay awaited him.

  Grunting and groaning and verging on panic, he crawled across the mound. In spite of the cold, sweat poured down his face, burning his eyes, but he didn’t dare try to wipe it away. His hands were covered with the putrid muck. At one point, he wondered if he had already died and gone to hell, fated to crawl across this hideous landscape for all eternity.

  His hand came down on something hard and cold. He recoiled, but when he looked at it, he was amazed to find an old M16 with a severed strap lying amid the ruins. The large bayonet was still attached. Buoyed by his luck or perhaps divine intervention, he pulled it from the slime and used it to help lever himself across the floor. He checked the cartridge. It was empty. But at least the bayonet might provide him with some measure of defense until the others could reach him.

  His left hand came down on something soft and leathery like a rotten melon, and he pulled away in horror, afraid of finding a severed head, its sightless eyes staring back at him. Instead, he found it was an oblong, gourdlike thing slightly larger than a football. It was split open down its length, as if something had exploded from within. A strange, yellowish puss oozed from it, as if a dozen rotten eggs had been cracked and poured inside.

  Something moved in front of him. The flare behind him was beginning to die, filling the cavern with flickering shadows and making it difficult to see. He pulled out another flare, snapped the end from it, and tossed it before him.

  A hideous, reptilian-looking creature about two feet tall stood before him, mewling and snapping. Its long snout, which was lined with hundreds of tiny, razor-sharp teeth, was covered in blood. It flared its wings open and shook them and hissed in warning before it turned back to bury its teeth in the ripped-open underbelly of what had once been a dog.

  Busey snapped.

  As he shoved himself forward, he screamed at the monster. “Get away from him. Leave him alone!”

  The creature turned to face him, flapped its wings, and snapped angrily. Busey stabbed the thing with the bayonet, driving it through its belly and out its back. It screeched in agony, its tail writhing and twisting about wildly. Busey stabbed it again and again until the thing finally stopped moving. The only sound left to be heard was Busey’s ragged, grunting breathing as he drove the bayonet into the mangled carcass again and again until at last, shaking and sobbing, he collapsed.

  A rustling came from above. When he looked up into the darkened recesses of the cavern, Busey could just make out the shape of something large and black against the ceiling.

  Then he realized something. There was more than one. There were two. No, there were three of them barely discernable amid the shadows in the flickering light. But during their briefing, they had been told that only one of the creatures had survived the plane crash.

  And he knew they had made a terrible mistake. They had assumed there was only one of the creatures. But they were wrong. Somehow, it had managed to reproduce. Now there were as many as two or three generations of the things ravaging the wilderness and slowly spreading outward as their need for food increased during the harsh winter months. It also explained why he hadn’t been killed right away. He must have been attacked by one of the offspring without the titanium blade on its tail.

  One of the shadows on the ceiling moved again. Its leathery wings fluttered, as if it were just coming awake. He had to get out of there—fast. He began crawling across the pile, struggling to reach the side of the cavern, where he hoped to find a connecting tunnel or at least a lowlying overhang to hide beneath until help arrived.

  Then he remembered the transponders. He looked behind him, where his pack still lay atop the pile of bones and guano some twenty feet away. He looked up at the ceiling. Nothing moved.

  He looked at his pack again. It was almost directly beneath the creatures. He had no choice but to go back. Without the transponder signal, the others would never find him, and he knew he wouldn’t survive the night if they didn’t.

  He began working his way back, making every effort to be as silent as possible. He would cautiously scrape and slide forward and then pause to look at the ceiling before he repeated the process. Each time he looked up, he was certain he could perceive more movement among the shadows than he had previously. Sweat poured from him. His body s
hook with exhaustion. The pain in his leg was so overwhelming he nearly puked.

  When he put his hands on his pack, he almost cried out in relief. He switched on one of the transponders, and a barely perceptible, high-pitched whistle filled his ears as the unit powered up.

  Above him, there was movement again. He wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with the transponder, but he left it where it was in the hope that it might serve as a decoy. As quickly as possible, while still trying to be quiet, he began clawing his way back across the grotesque landscape, inch by agonizing inch.

  The flapping of wings above him broke the silence and stirred the air within the cavern. He froze. Slowly, he turned his head just enough to look to the ceiling.

  A pair of malevolent, yellow eyes stared back at him.

  It spread its wings and then dropped toward him. Busey rolled and brought up the rifle. The beast slammed into him, impaling itself on the bayonet. It screeched furiously, an ear-piercing wail that echoed throughout in the cavern. It snapped at him, razor-sharp teeth mere inches from his face. Claws tore and ripped at his midsection as it sought to disembowel him.

  Busey screamed and rammed the bayonet farther into the beast’s belly. The thing clamped down on his arm with its long snout, tearing through the protective suit and into his flesh. He ripped the bayonet sideways with all his strength. Gouts of thick, black blood erupted from the creature, slathering his arms and chest. Its grip on his arm loosened as its entrails spilled out.

  With a final, mewling cry, it collapsed on top of him, its last few breaths blowing hot across his face. He gagged from the putrid stench.

  He shoved the monster off to the side and began working to pull the bayonet free, but his hands were slick with blood, which prevented him from getting a good enough grip.

  There was movement above.

  He stopped and looked up.

  And had just enough time to raise his arms in a futile act of defense as the shadows fell upon him.

  CHAPTER 74

  “Hello?” It was a child’s voice that answered.

  Shit.

  “Hey, Lincoln, it’s Kyle,” he said, trying to sound upbeat. “Is your mom there?”

  “Yeah,” the boy replied sheepishly. He then turned away from the receiver and yelled, “Mom, phone!”

  There was a brief pause. Kyle could hear wacky cartoon music playing in the background.

  “I’ve got it, son. Hang up now,” came Rochelle’s voice.

  “’Kay, bye, Kyle,” said the boy as he hung up.

  “Kyle?” Rochelle asked. The tone of her voice was laced with concern.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Rochelle. I—” He had done this hundreds of times before, but now that it involved someone close to him, he found himself struggling to get the words out.

  “Oh, God, something’s happened, hasn’t it?” Rochelle asked.

  “It’s—” He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right, but he couldn’t. “Lewis has been shot.”

  “Oh, God, is he all right?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “We’re at the hospital. They’ve taken him into surgery.”

  Rochelle’s voice quivered as she asked, “Where was he shot?”

  “In the stomach.”

  “But that’s good, isn’t it? I mean, it shouldn’t be life-threatening, right? He’ll be okay, won’t he? Tell me he’ll be okay, Kyle.”

  “I … I honestly don’t know, Rochelle.” He felt like shit for saying it, even though it was the truth. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that it was his fault, that if he hadn’t let the bastard get away, then her husband wouldn’t be in surgery with a bullet in his gut. “We got to the hospital real fast. I wish I could tell you more, but I just don’t know.”

  Rochelle started crying, and Kyle stayed on the line with her, unsure of how else to support her. “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling. “You’d think that after all these years, I’d be ready for this, but I’m not. How can you ever be ready for something like this?”

  “You can’t,” Kyle agreed.

  “So what do I do?”

  “I don’t know all the details yet, but the bureau’s flying out two more agents in the morning. SAC Geddes will get in touch with you about flying in with them, but I thought … I thought I should be the one to call you.”

  “Thank you, Kyle. I appreciate that,” Rochelle said as she struggled to regain her composure.

  “Do you want me to have someone come over?”

  “No, not yet—” She didn’t finish the thought. It just hung there in the silence—the one possibility that neither of them were willing to speak of, as if saying it might make it a reality.

  “I’ll call as soon as I find out anything more,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said and then hung up quickly as if she might break down again.

  In spite of the heater, the temperature in the car had fallen to the point that he could see the silvery mist of his breath. As he grit his teeth to keep them from chattering, he pushed against the steering wheel and drove himself back into the seat until his arms shook. He wanted to scream.

  It was cold. So fucking cold.

  CHAPTER 75

  His own panting breath reverberating within his helmet was all that Ramirez heard as he slogged his way down the steep trail. He constantly scanned the forest around him, struggling to differentiate the movement of the windblown evergreens from a possible bogey in the neon-green display. He no longer trusted the alarm system to give him adequate warning—it had already failed them once—and having lost his partner, he no longer had the benefit of an extra lookout. Several times already, his scrutiny of the surroundings had caused him to stumble. On one occasion, he had nearly fallen down a steep ravine just off the trail.

  Even with the snowshoes, it was a constant battle to remain upright. In some areas, the snow was deep and soft, causing him to bog down, while in other areas, it was hard and icy. His toes were jamming into the ends of his boots with each step until he was certain he would lose a few of the nails. The throbbing pain in his knee from his earlier collision with the tree continued to worsen, which caused him to hobble like an old lady as he fought his way down the trail.

  When his radio went off, he nearly dove for cover.

  “Team One,” came Ainsworth’s voice. “We’ve just received a signal from transponder 403. It’s one of Busey’s. I want you down that mountain on the double. Team Two will meet you at the base before proceeding on to the transponder location.”

  “Roger,” Ramirez replied. In spite of the pain, he picked up the pace, more than happy to comply with the order. His spirits were lifted with the hope that they might be able to rescue Busey and that he would no longer be facing the menace of the forest alone.

  Ramirez was making his way through the lower elevations near the point he would meet up with Team Two when his alarm went off. He ducked immediately and then checked the alarm coordinates. It was within a mile of him and closing. He watched the display as it counted down the distance. It was heading in his direction—and fast. With a sinking feeling, he realized it wasn’t just coming in his direction, but it was coming directly at him. He quickly surveyed the area, looking for a place to take cover. To his left, the mountain dropped off precipitously, to his right, it rose sharply, and the tree cover was sparse. About twenty yards ahead, he spotted a fair-sized boulder lying halfway across the trail. He began running as best as he could manage while the alarm continued to buzz and the counter dropped.

  “Team One,” Ainsworth’s voice cut through the alarm. “You’ve got a bogey bearing down on you.”

  “I’m on it,” Ramirez replied. The display rolled below twelve hundred yards. He ducked behind the boulder, unshouldered the tranq gun, and turned to face the incoming target.

  “Hold your position. Team Two is within a mile and closing.”

  “Roger,” Ramirez replied. The counter continued to wind down

  One thousand yards. He raise
d the gun and activated the targeting system in the visor.

  Eight hundred yards.

  And then, suddenly, it veered off course, turning almost ninety degrees to the east, continuing on for a few hundred yards before stopping.

  Ramirez waited for several long moments, his eyes glued to the alarm indicator on his visor, before he finally relaxed. He stepped from behind the boulder and radioed back to camp. “We’ve lost it, sir.”

  “I know,” Ainsworth replied. “Continue on down to the rendezvous point with Team Two.”

  “Roger,” Javier replied. Instead of reshouldering the tranq gun, he decided to carry it in case the bogey began moving again. He turned and started back down the trail.

  Wham!

  Something big slammed into him from out of nowhere, knocking him across the trail. There were no buzzing alarms or shouted warnings this time, but fireworks still erupted within his head as his helmet cracked against the trunk of a tree.

  He struggled to rise, but his body seemed unwilling or unable to respond. Everything seemed far away, as if he were at the end of a long tunnel or the bottom of a deep pool. He tried to call for help, but the faint lights of the display kept fading in and out of focus as he struggled to maintain consciousness.

  The monochromatic green display flickered as there was movement to his right. He turned his head in time to see a clawed foot crunch into the snow next to his head.

  No amount of debriefing could have prepared him for such a sight. What stood before him was a vision straight out of hell. The thing was massive, much larger than they had expected, at least seven feet tall with thick, sinewy legs that looked like those of the raptors in the Jurassic Park movies, along with the eight-inch claws. Unable to move, he could only watch in horror as the thing spread its large wings and fluttered them. Its long, thin head reared back as it issued a squealing, screeching cry, its razor-sharp teeth glimmering green as they reflected the ambient light.