Ancestor

by Scott Sigler

  Clayton sat in the Ted Nugent’s backseat, leaning against the passenger-side window. Maybe he’d passed out, maybe not.

  Tim looked up from his pile of plastique balls and detonators. “They’re here.”

  No, it was too soon. Colding and Sara snapped a quick look at the snow-covered dune. They saw small bits of movement from just behind the crest, like sticks blowing in the wind. That, and a few small glimpses of yellow.

  The ancestors weren’t attacking.

  He remembered their intelligence … they knew about the guns. He stood and pointed the Uzi at the dune, then snapped a quick glance at his watch.

  “Set all the timers for 7:30, do it now! Shove ’em in the bag!”

  Sara and Tim didn’t argue, they grabbed bombs and started setting timers. Would that be enough time?

  Sara thrust the bag at him. “Don’t fuck it up,” she said. Some women might have said good luck or at least I hope you know what you’re doing, but that just wasn’t Sara’s way. He handed her the Uzi, threw the bag full of bombs over his shoulder, then hopped on Gary’s snowmobile. He gunned the engine, driving the sled out onto the bumpy ice toward the Otto II. The rough surface jarred him with punishing ups and downs.

  He reached the boat and started a wide circle around it, dropping plastique balls as he went.

  7:28:33 A.M.

  Sara saw two ancestors bound over the crest and barrel down the snowy dune.

  Why only two?

  “Tim, get in!”

  Sara fired as she backed toward the Bv. She got lucky on the first burst, the bullets smashing into the ancestor’s front left leg. It toppled forward, instantly crippled, rolling head over heels in a cloud of snow and sand.

  She fired a burst at the second one, now only fifteen feet away, so close she could see its tongue inside the open mouth. The bullets drove into that open mouth.

  It kept coming.

  Fear pulled her finger tight against the trigger. Bullets sprayed into the ancestor’s face. It stopped only five feet from her, shaking its head violently, trying to turn away, but it was too late. It fell heavily to its side, twitching and kicking its powerful limbs.

  Sara pointed the Uzi at its head and fired.

  Two bullets came out, then the little submachine gun made a click sound. Sara blinked a few times, tried pulling the trigger again, her adrenaline-soaked brain not quite comprehending the fact that she was out of ammo.

  Again, just a single click.

  Dozens of ancestor heads popped up into plain sight. Every yellow sail fin rose high into the air.

  “Fuck me running,” Tim said. “They know the goddamn gun is empty.”

  The ancestors rose and charged down the snow-covered dune, their wide-open mouths roaring in long-delayed triumph.

  Sara tossed the Uzi aside and jumped into the driver’s seat. She gunned the engine, driving straight out onto the ice. It would crack eventually, but the Nuge was supposed to be seaworthy. If she could get them close to the Otto II, it might be enough.

  It would have to be.

  7:28:54 A.M.

  Colding pushed the Ski-Doo to its limits, smashing it over the uneven ice. Any second now the jagged crust could crack under him, drop him into a freezing, watery grave.

  But the ice held.

  He drove to the breakwall entrance, stopping maybe thirty feet from the open water. That was as close as he dared go to the ice’s edge. He tossed a Demex bomb. The fist-sized ball bounced once, then came to rest only five feet from the splashing water. Colding looked back toward the Otto II. He’d left a line of ten bombs between the boat and the harbor entrance, another six in a circle around the boat itself. He checked his watch: fifty-five seconds and counting.

  The sound of a diesel engine and smashing metal drew his attention. The zebra-striped Bv206 pounded across the ice. Tank treads ground over the uneven surface, slowing the vehicle to maybe ten miles an hour. The ancestor pack was only thirty feet behind and closing fast.

  A sick, coppery feeling ran through his stomach—he wouldn’t be able to make it to the Otto II before the ancestors did. He looked in his canvas bag. Still had eight plastique balls.

  Plastique balls that were ticking away.

  Fifty seconds and counting.

  Colding pointed the Ski-Doo at the shore and gunned the engine.

  7:29:11 A.M.

  They were only twenty-five feet from the Otto II. She checked the side mirror: three ancestors at the back bumper.

  She heard a deep, splintery cracking, then the Bv dropped through the ice and plunged into the water. The passengers’ heads snapped forward as if they’d driven straight into a wall.

  Icy water welled up over the windshield, over the roof, and poured through the open upper hatch.

  A scream came unbidden, but the cold wetness locked it tight in her throat.

  7:29:16 A.M.

  Colding saw the Bv drop through the ice into the water. It almost went under, then popped up like a slow-motion cork. The ice broke up under the lead ancestors. Two dropped into the frigid water. The last one leaped into the Bv’s rear flatbed and clung to the zebra-striped lift bucket.

  Colding couldn’t help Sara now. He didn’t have a gun, didn’t even have a knife, for fuck’s sake. She would have to find a way to deal with it.

  He banked left, between the shore and the ancestor horde, dropping plastique balls along the way.

  Forty seconds and counting.

  7:29:21 A.M.

  Sara regained her composure. Despite ice-cold water up to her ankles, she punched the gas pedal to the floor. The Nuge moved forward, slowly churning through the harbor.

  “Tim, get over here. Keep your foot on the gas!” Tim slid sideways. Sara hopped over him to the passenger side as he took the wheel.

  Sara crawled out of the passenger-side hatch, water dripping from her legs. She gathered her feet under herself and crouched, trying to keep her balance on the swaying Bv’s slick metal roof. They had to tie off to the Otto II to get everyone onboard.

  Then she heard the roar.

  So close it hurt her ears, so close she felt hot breath on the back of her neck. She knew, finally, that her time had come.

  Sara turned to face her fate. An ancestor perched on the Bv roof, long claws scraping into the metal as it struggled to keep from sliding off. Not even two feet away. So big. So big.

  A snarl twisted Sara’s lips. Her hair strung wetly across her face, her eyes hateful slits, she looked as much like an animal as the beast preparing to end her life.

  Come on, fucker. Get it over with.

  The ancestor opened wide and leaned forward.

  Sara closed her eyes.

  Five shots rang out.

  The ancestor reared backward, blood pouring from an eye, from its mouth, from its nose. Big clawed feet slipped on the wet roof and it tumbled overboard, splashing into the icy water like a boulder dropped from ten stories high.

  Sara turned, unable to grasp the fact that she was still alive.

  Standing in the bow and wrapped in a thick blanket, Gary Detweiler held a smoking Beretta in his outstretched hand.

  “About fuckin’ time.” Clayton’s voice, from inside the Nuge. “Where da hell you been, boy?”

  7:29:45 A.M.

  Colding tossed the last plastique ball and turned toward the Otto II, chancing a quick glance at his watch.

  Twelve seconds.

  He had only one chance. He opened the throttle and leaned forward, holding on tight as the Ski-Doo slammed toward the boat.

  7:29:49 A.M.

  They didn’t have time to tie off. The Bv’s port side ground against the Otto II, breaking away ice that clung stubbornly to the starboard hull. Sara and Tim scrambled aboard as Gary pulled his dad out of the hatch. Clayton screamed in pain, but with his son’s help made it onto the boat.

  Sara looked around for Colding but didn’t see him. “Gary! Where’s Colding?”

  Gary ran to the short ladder leading to the boat’s
flying bridge. As he climbed, he pointed out the port side.

  Sara looked. There was Peej, driving toward them, Ski-Doo bouncing off the broken ice like a Jeep driving through a rutted gully.

  She checked her watch. Two, one …

  7:30:00 A.M.

  Twenty-four balls of Demex plastic explosive detonated simultaneously. Ice chunks and shards flew like frozen shrapnel, some to land a good mile away.

  A six-pointed ring erupted around the Otto II. The concussive force ripped inward, powerful enough to hit the ancestors closest to the boat and knock them into the frigid waters. Sara and Tim dove to the deck, ice flying all around them.

  Colding was halfway between the ring and boat when the plastique detonated. The shock wave hit him from behind, so powerful it tumbled the Ski-Doo like a toy thrown by a petulant child. He flew through the air, the snowmobile spinning out from under him and smashing into a dozen pieces against the ice.

  He landed fifteen feet from the boat’s port side, his limp body cartwheeling off the ice. He flew another ten feet to plunge into the newly open water just five feet from the boat.

  Sara watched, horrified, as P. J.’s body vanished beneath the surface.

  “Rope!” She stripped off her jacket. “Get me some fucking rope!”

  The Otto II’s engines roared to life. Gary looked down from the flying bridge and pointed to a footlocker.

  She opened it and pulled out a long coil of red-and-white nylon rope. Then Gary was at her side, clumsy bandages across his chest showing huge splotches of red, some of them wet and fresh.

  She handed him a loose end of the rope. “Tie it around my waist!” She peeled off her sweater and kicked off her boots as Gary tied the rough rope around her hips.

  She turned on Gary. “You do not pull me up until I tug on the rope, understand?”

  Gary shook his head. “You’ve only got a few seconds in that water, Sara, you can’t—”

  She reached out and held the sides of his face.

  “Pull me up before I tug, and I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

  Gary nodded.

  Sara turned, put her foot on the side rail, then dove into the water.

  The cold splash from the Bv’s brief submersion had been bad, but nothing like this. She tried to stay under as her body rebelled, instinctively pushed for the surface.

  Get out get out get out.

  Her head popped out of the water, barely in time for her to let loose a scream of primitive, instinctive fear.

  She looked up at the boat. Gary stood there, the white-and-red rope in his hands, a look on his face that said Should I pull you in?

  Sara didn’t answer the unasked question. She drew a huge, rattling breath, then forced herself under once again. The cold scraped her skin like a grater, driving at her with needles of pain. She kicked and kicked. Hard to see anything in the murky water.

  So cold …

  Her lungs screamed from lack of oxygen, but she dove farther. She wouldn’t leave him down there. She kept on kicking with all of her quickly fading energy.

  Where is he? I can’t lose him …

  She couldn’t see. Blood roared inside her head. Her heart banged like a kick drum, faster, faster.

  Her hand smashed into a slimy rock at the bottom of the harbor. She couldn’t take any more, had to go up. She put her hands out to push away from the bottom, and her fingers hit something soft.

  Soft like fabric.

  She grabbed for it. It was a body—Colding’s body.

  He’s not moving …

  Sara wrapped her legs around his back and yanked on the rope. She immediately threw her arms under his shoulders, clutching him chest to chest in a desperate, loving embrace. The rope snapped taut around her waist, pulling them toward the surface.

  Can’t breathe can’t breathe …

  Sara’s mouth opened of its own accord. Icy water poured across her tongue, into her throat. She thrashed, panic taking her, yet she refused to let go.

  Her head broke the surface. She gasped for air, coughing violently. She barely felt the hands pulling her into the boat. Her body shivered as if from an epileptic fit. Somebody pulled off her pants and wrapped a blanket around her before her thoughts became her own again.

  She sat up. Tim was over Colding, performing CPR, blowing air into his mouth, then pumping his chest.

  Unable to move, Sara watched while her lungs kicked out deep, chest-rattling coughs. Engines roared. She felt the boat lurch forward.

  Colding coughed, sending a splash of water out of his lungs and onto his face. Tim turned him on his side. Colding coughed again, then Sara heard the sweet sound of air rushing into his lungs.

  “Help me get his clothes off,” Tim said. Sara reached in. She and Tim pulled the waterlogged snowsuit off Colding’s body. Colding kept coughing, but he obliged, weakly helping them remove his clothes. Sara moved to him and held him, their two naked, wet, frigid bodies wrapped in the same blanket. Gary threw a second blanket around them. It had blood on it—the same blanket he’d been wearing only moments earlier.

  “You two will be fine,” Tim said. “I’ve got to look at Clayton.” He limped to the bow, leaving Sara and Colding clinging together, their bodies shivering in unison.

  “Guess I owe you one,” Colding said through blue lips.

  Sara nodded. “Guess so.”

  They kissed, both sets of lips feeling icy and clammy, but it didn’t matter. All the death was forgotten in that moment, because she had life, and she had him.

  They had won. Not without a heavy price, but it was over.

  They had survived.

  Huddling together, shivering together, they looked back to shore as the Otto II pulled away from Black Manitou Island.

  COLDING’S LAST EIGHT plastique balls had made an arc behind the ancestor horde. The bombs shattered huge chunks of ice, enough to break off a massive slab that stranded the ancestors in the harbor.

  They ran about the slab, looking for a way off, but there was nowhere for them to go. A small piece near the edge broke off under one’s weight—it fell into the water, thick limbs splashing uselessly. It lasted only a few seconds before it slid beneath the surface.

  The main slab cracked in two. When it did, the seven ancestors at the edge of the left chunk proved to be too much weight—the slab tilted like a large teeter-totter. The seven tried to turn and run back up the ice, but it was too late: they all splashed into the water, doomed by their useless attempts at swimming.

  The slab continued to break apart.

  Sara and Colding heard the animals’ roars even over the wind and the Otto II’s full-out engine. One by one, the ancestors fell into the water and disappeared.

  One last ancestor remained afloat. It was missing its left ear and had an all-white head save for a black patch on the left eye. It looked at the boat, seemed to look right at Sara and Colding. It opened its mouth and let out a huge, primitive roar of unbridled fury.

  Colding saw something moving in the water, something with a wet, black head. Could some of them swim after all? Then the image crystallized in his brain.

  “Mookie,” Colding said quietly. He shouted up to the flying bridge, “Gary, stop the boat!”

  The black Australian shepherd cut through the frigid waters, heading straight for the patch of ice that held the last ancestor.

  “Mookie!” Colding shouted. “Get the hell away from there! Come here, girl!”

  But the dog ignored him. She reached the ice patch and struggled to climb on top.

  BABY MCBUTTER TURNED and saw the small creature. She had seen this prey before. It had been there when she’d torn her way free from the big animal, when she’d taken her first bite of the trapped prey with the wounded leg. This creature had attacked her, hurt her.

  Baby McButter roared in wide-mouthed fury, challenging this new threat. The prey managed to clumsily scramble aboard the ice patch—it roared back, the roroororoo sound pitiful and small in comparison, but no less hateful, n
o less primitive.

  Baby McButter took a step toward the prey, but stopped—the ice shifted with every movement. She’d seen all of her brethren enter the water and not come out. She had to stay still.

  The little prey ran toward her, barking, stopping just out of claw-swipe range. Its black lip curled back to show small white teeth. It made threatening lunges.

  It wouldn’t stop making that annoying noise.

  COLDING LOOKED AWAY from the ice-top battle to see Tim helping Clayton move to the back of the boat.

  “Dad!” Gary shouted down from the flying bridge. “Are you okay?”

  “Good enough,” Clayton said. He looked up and smiled. “I’m proud of you, son. Now get me da hell out of here.”

  Colding pointed out to the ice floe. “Clayton, you know that dumb-ass dog, call her in here! What the hell is she doing?”

  Clayton leaned heavily on the rail and looked out. “We haven’t seen Sven, eh? I think he’s dead, and I think Mookie knows it. She’s getting some payback.”

  Mookie barked so hard her body shook, pure fury encapsulated in wet black fur. The last ancestor took a tentative snap. Mookie easily danced away, kept barking, kept snarling.

  The one-eared ancestor reared back its head, then lunged at the dog. The ice floe tilted instantly, sending dog and ancestor into the frigid harbor. The ice righted itself, splashing back into the water. A huge white head with a black eye spot surfaced. The ancestor’s long claws splashed feebly, hitting the edge of the ice. Chunks broke off with each swipe, giving the creature no purchase. It opened its mouth for one last roar, then slid below the surface.

  Colding looked hard, hoping, wishing. Finally, he saw a small patch of black cutting through the ice-filled water.

  “Come on, girl!”

  The dog looked exhausted. She paddled straight for the boat. Waves lifted her, buffeted her. She panted, spitting out water in big, cheek-puffing gasps. Colding reached out as far as he could. Sara weakly held his legs, letting him stretch even farther. Mookie dipped under, then popped back up. She slowed. Colding reached farther … and his fingers grabbed the dog’s collar. He dragged her to the rail. Sara reached over and helped him pull the exhausted, tuck-tailed dog onboard. Mookie collapsed between Colding and Gary Detweiler, shivering madly, chest heaving: one more exhausted, wounded survivor of the disaster.