Passage Graves
Page 3
Pain engulfed Ian’s body. It was a racking ache. Nothing like he’d ever felt before. There was a burning sensation. He grabbed his head—he knew this wasn’t real. The floor erupted with fire. The blaze spread up the walls, licking the ceiling with a monstrous crackle. Angry flames ate through his cassock, clawed at his flesh. They boiled his blood and reduced his bones to hollow glass. He felt every sensation of burning, and as his body transformed to ash, his stomach erupted with insatiable hunger. It was starvation so severe that the inferno became an afterthought.
Ian twisted toward the door. He crawled away from the captive in a senseless panic. His mind and body were scorching. The outline of a dark figure appeared in the smoke, blocking his view. At first it was only a shapeless silhouette, but slowly the details of a face became visible: the nose, pointed and thin; the mouth pulled downward in a scowl, the lips taut and quivering; finally the eyes—they glowed exactly like the eyes of the undead captive. But it wasn’t the captive.
“What do you see?” Javan interrupted Ian’s vision.
Ian scrambled toward Javan’s voice.
Somehow, he had left the cell. His back was against the wall of the corridor, his entire body trembling. The captive was locked away behind the thick steel vault. Ian was safe. He was surrounded by armed guards. He stared down at his body. His cassock was clean, his hands unharmed. There was no fire. None of it was real.
Javan forced Ian around, grabbing him by the collar. “What did he show you?”
Ian’s tongue was numbed by the fire that parched his bones. He felt suddenly alone, as if severed from God. Worse, he had stepped into darkness. Willingly. Holiness had left him.
“He showed you the Chosen One,” Javan said. Sweat dripped along the sides of his cheeks.
Ian clawed at the cement floor. The periphery of his vision was a delirium of cobwebs. His head was spinning. He threw his arms over his head to duck below the hallucination, an aftershock of grotesque flashes: his blackened, shriveled body, cinder skin, depleted sinew sucked into his charcoal bones.
Javan pulled Ian’s head off the ground. “Who did you see?”
Ian sputtered, barely able to form the words. “I saw myself.
Chapter 5
FRIDAY 11:53 p.m.
Orkney Island, Scotland
The rolling countryside was covered in late night fog. David twisted the radio knobs, trying to find a broadcast station, but the thick mist left nothing but static. As he switched off the receiver, Darwin leaned against him. Saliva dangled from her mouth.
“What’s wrong, girl?” He found a napkin on the floor and wiped off her drool.
She whimpered and tried to sit in his lap.
“Darwin!” He pushed her back into the passenger seat.
The Jeep swerved dangerously across the single lane highway.
“You’re gonna get us killed.”
David slammed on the brakes. He grabbed Darwin’s collar as she slid toward the dash.
The wheels skidded along the damp cement. They stopped inches from runaway sheep blocking the roadway.
David clutched the wheel. His legs were shaking. He looked at his dog to make sure she was okay. Darwin was panting and anxious, but not injured. “Crazy animals.” He turned back to the road and flipped on his brights.
Ubiquitous gray and white spanned the countryside. Hundreds of sheep had broken through the field fences protecting the highway. They blocked the road, stumbling over each other in a disoriented panic, maneuvering as one collective organism. They seemed oblivious until the bumper pushed them forward. Then, it was a frenzy of wool, the sheep jumping into each other and over each other as he tried to continue up the road.
He laid on the horn and inched up the hilltop, slowing splitting the sea of animals. He reached the top of the ridge.
“Holy hell.”
His foot slipped off the clutch. The Jeep stalled.
There weren’t hundreds of sheep—there were thousands, growing in density toward Stenness.
The fur on Darwin’s neck raised on end. Her whimper expanded into barking.
“It’s okay.” David found the remains of his hamburger beside his seat and held the leftovers to her nose. Her ears bent back. She wanted nothing to do with it.
“We’re almost there,” David promised, restarting the Jeep.
The herd crowded the roadway, but lessened in number along the rocky edges of the lake. Time for four-wheel drive.
Locking the hubs and shifting into high range, he turned off the road into the greensward that surrounded the edges of the Loch of Stenness. Unruly tufts of grass billowed out of the earth, coalescing into mounds, and making the ride bumpy and slow. Once he reached the lake, it was easier to drive around them. The yellow porch light of Marta McLeod’s Bed’n’Breakfast finally came into view. David gave a sigh of relief.
****
“You coming?” David stepped out onto the gravel road and encouraged Darwin to follow him. It had taken over an hour to reach Marta’s place. His shoulders were tense and tight, his eyes strained and tired. He was ready for bed.
Darwin looked over at him from the passenger seat and lowered her head. She was unwilling to budge.
“Yeah, you’re cute.” David leaned back into the cab and grabbed her collar. “But you still need to come out of the car.”
Darwin jumped to the ground, tucked her tail, and leaned against him.
“No sheep chasin’,” he mumbled, but Darwin didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in running off. She followed him to the back of the Jeep where he pulled out a small suitcase. He threw aside field equipment and clutter, and then frowned, finding the bouquet for Marta squished and withering. Turning the arrangement upside down, he shook out the half-dead petals, discarded the most embarrassing blossoms, and formed the remainder into a wilted work of art. He was late, Marta was probably asleep, but at least he did tardy with style.
****
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” a jovial voice boomed from upstairs as David opened the front door. The lilt of Marta McLeod’s Scottish accent played tricks on his ears. “Who’s coming to my house expecting a room at this ungodly hour?”
A round woman bounded down the stairs. Gray curls framed her grandmotherly face. Marta made wrinkles and smile lines attractive.
David hid the flowers behind his back. “Sorry I didn’t call.”
“Aye, when do you ever call?” Marta smiled. “I always have a room for you, Dr. Hyden. I was hoping you’d be coming to visit that old ruin of yours. Give us a kiss.” She shoved a chubby cheek in his face.
Shyly, David complied.
She spotted the flowers behind his back with a squeal. “Shame on you.”
He handed her the bouquet. “Sorry, they’re not much.”
“You shouldn’t have, love.” She fetched a vase from the kitchen and filled it with water. “But I’m glad that you did.”
David helped himself to one of the homemade orange rolls in a straw basket on the table. They were still warm. She’d been up baking and waiting for him.
“Those are for breakfast.” Marta slapped his hand and then nodded for him to take a bite. “Well, how’s it taste?”
“Delicious,” he said. Orange cream gushed out the sides of his mouth. He wiped the custard with the back of his hand.
Marta bent over Darwin. “How’s he treating you these days, sweetheart?”
Darwin lashed out at her hand.
“Darwin!” David pulled the dog back by her collar. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into her tonight.”
Marta masked her alarm by rearranging the flowers. “She’s jealous is all. It’s not every day she sees you giving flowers to another woman.” She set the vase on the table and snatched up David’s bag before he could object. “Are you staying the whole weekend?”
“Is that okay?” He licked sticky sweet goo from his fingers and took his luggage away from her.
“‘Course it is, love.”
David fol
lowed her up the stairwell. Darwin kept at his heels, her ears set back with agitation.
“Was your drive alright?” she asked. “The fog is thicker than pea soup tonight.”
He laughed. According to Marta, weather could always be compared to some form of soup.
“What’s with all the sheep?” he asked.
Marta shook her head. “They think they own this country of ours.”
“I’ve never seen so many in my life. We had to off-road it just to get here.”
She stopped at the top of the stairs beside his bedroom door. “They’ll stop up the roads now and again.”
“Yeah, but thousands of them?”
“Thousands?” Marta’s eyebrows skewed with surprise. “You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not.”
“Aye.” She pouted and opened the door. The floor creaked as she moved to his bed, folded back the covers, and fluffed the pillows. “A few days ago, Mr. Boyle found ten sheep, all of ‘em dead and atop your ruin.”
“Maeshowe?”
“Ugly lot, too, the way he tells it. Frozen stiff, and all wild in the eyes.”
“Mad sheep disease?” David winked.
Marta giggled. “Make yourself at home and let me know if you’ll be needing anything.”
****
David pulled the covers up to his chin and patted the bed. “Come on, girl.”
She paced the floor.
“Come on up, Darwin.”
Slobber dripped from her tongue, and her ears were still set unnaturally back. Maybe there was going to be an earthquake or something? She was acting so strange.
David threw off the covers. “I can’t even get my own dog to sleep with me.” He sat at the edge of the bed. “Do you need to go outside?”
There was a dog door downstairs, and she had never had a problem going by herself.
He went to the door, offering to join her, but she cowered in the corner, walking back and forth and whining.
“I don’t know what you want,” he said, stroking her head.
She settled at the foot of the bed, uninterested in leaving the room.
David bent over her. “Please come up.”
She licked his hand and whimpered.
Leaving the door ajar and letting her choose, he got back into bed, pulled up the covers, and invited her into the warm sanctuary. “It’s now or never, girl.”
Darwin’s ears folded back. She stared at the open door.
“Fine.” David turned out the light and was soon fast asleep.
Chapter 6
SATURDAY 1:56 a.m.
Orkney Island, Scotland
British NATO officer Brynne Thatcher stifled a yawn as she reached her research tent among the fields. Nearby generators hummed with electricity, feeding the massive overhead floodlight system that covered half a mile of the rolling grasslands.
“Marek, it’s 2 a.m., the coffee better be good,” she called out.
“It’s good.” Marek, the team’s mathematician, stepped out of the tent. “This shit is pure battery acid.” He smiled and handed her the much-needed cup of coffee. A black man from the Bronx, Marek had a gorgeous smile.
“Thank God.”
“Café cubano with hazelnut and soymilk,” he said.
“Brilliant.” She smelled the nutty aroma.
Marek lifted the tent’s door flap and followed her inside.
Without looking back at him, Thatcher could tell he was perusing the goods. Despite the nature of her work and her determination to dress like one of the boys, she exuded femininity. Her raven hair was tucked back in a messy bun, and her thin frame was buried under a down jacket. The look didn’t seem to discourage anyone’s imagination. Beauty was a disadvantage. In the sciences, being attractive meant not being taken seriously. Her aptitude for pathology was a “turn-on” rather than an irreplaceable asset to the men she worked alongside.
“I thought today’s test wasn’t scheduled until 0600?” she said, annoyed. A half-hour earlier she had been sound asleep in her Kirkwall motel room.
“It was Lee’s decision.”
Of course. That was all Marek had to say. She couldn’t help but respond with an eye roll. Her promotion had been a controversial decision—one she hated to admit was determined by nepotism. Opportunities came more easily when your uncle was a top strategic commander. Her advancement brassed off a lot of people—mostly scientists far more qualified for the job—senior scientists like Lee.
She set her drink on a table and ignited another gas lantern near her corner of the tent. The burning propane cast light over four tables and a computer console. Eying her work with distaste, she frowned at the pigeon carcasses strewn over the tabletops. Their bodies were contorted and awaiting further mutilation. Scalpels, rulers, and forceps were piled high in a tray of dissecting tools beside her computer. Three microscopes sat on top of boxes of acoustic equipment. She had to make do with very little space.
Marek noticed her disapproval of the birds. “It’s so damn cold, we figured you didn’t need us to bag’em and put them in the box.” He gestured at the beer cooler at the foot of the table and then took a seat beside it in a beach chair.
With a heavy sigh, Thatcher snapped on latex gloves. Dissecting pigeons and sparrows hardly fulfilled her ambition.
“You hungry?” Marek opened the cooler and pushed aside bagged remains until he found a package of Twinkies at the bottom. He tore open the cellophane.
Thatcher shook her head as he took a monster-sized bite out of the Twinkie. “That’s revolting.”
“Nothing wrong with it,” he said. “Everything is sterile. Besides, this baby is chock full of preservatives.”
“Your cake could outlive us all.”
Marek gave her a wide smile. “Come on, boss.” He lifted the cake towards her. “These suckers are hard to find these days. You gotta know people who know people.”
Thatcher’s lip curled in disgust. She placed one of the birds onto the dissecting pan, pinned its wings into the blue pad, then cut down the length of its torso. The bird’s intestines spilled onto the aluminum tray in a thick gelatinous mess. Marek stared at the carnage and chewed more slowly on his cake. The syrupy foam innards looked too much like cream filling.
“I’ll finish this later.” He placed the remainder of the cake back into its packaging, and returned the stash to its hiding place in the cooler.
“You boys were busy tonight,” Thatcher said as she searched for intact organs. “There’s not much left here. What level were you testing at?”
“170 dB,” he said.
“Why so high?”
“Lee.”
“Bastard.” Thatcher shook her head. Their weapon was intended for humane crowd control, not instantaneous death. It made no sense to test Sonja at lethal frequencies. It was probably Lee’s conspiracy to keep her tied up in the lab. Twenty birds awaited dissection, each with internal damage so severe that finding meaningful differences in the tissue would take a keen eye and laborious work.
Marek cleared his throat. “We’re charging up Sonja for another test run this morning, if you’d like to watch.”
Deep in concentration, Thatcher didn’t respond. She removed the bird’s vertebrae. Her thoughts began to unravel like the battered sinew at her fingertips as she made her way toward the pigeon’s brain. For the most part, NATO was indifferent to her work. Their weapon was trivial compared to the growing threat of nuclear proliferation and biochemical arms. Sure, deadly noise could rupture organs, inflict burns, even cause death—thus, all the lovely bird cadavers—but they were supposed to be developing humane weaponry. Non-lethal armaments no one really cared about, a modified Helmholtz resonator.
A blast of wind burst through the tent door.
“What the—?” Thatcher started.
Pages of research notes flew off the table.
Another jolt, far more intense, resonated like a clap of thunder, blasting over the tent and sending her heart into arrhythmia.
He met her eyes, cringing. His mouth moved, but he had no voice. Veins pulsed along his temples.
Breathe, she commanded, but her lungs were taut.
Everything moved in slow motion. An invisible vice gripped her throat. Suffocating weight compressed her chest. Her heart thrashed within its fibrous surroundings, threatening to burst. As if being smothered in frigid water, her arms and legs were numb. Muscles vibrated along bones, incapable of obeying neurological commands. Pressure clawed at her ears. It was impossible to forge one coherent thought. Her stomach knotted. Her vision pitched wildly right and left, circling downwards, abandoning consciousness for blinding chaos.
There was a terrible pop as the lanterns burst overhead.
Glass shattered all over the floor.
The world went black.
Chapter 7
SATURDAY 2:00 a.m.
London, England
The captive’s eyes glowed in the darkness of his cell. Thin lips curled behind sharp incisors, exposing his rotted gums.
Like clockwork, each moment gave way to the next with predetermined exactness.
A familiar sound rang in his ears, the glorious screams of the dying. The noise called forth his human emotions, mortal sensations long forgotten. Thirst pricked his tongue. Desire stirred his chest. Shallow breaths became deeper, heavier, and purposeful. For one splendid moment he was alive because of their horror.
The captive was naked, but Javan hadn’t taken everything from him. From his throat, he pulled out an arm’s length of wiry, metallic twine. It was thin, three braided strands of barbed wire, each barb a spherical thorn of tiny needles. It was the key to his escape.
Voices sounded out in the corridor.
Javan had returned, lured by the sign in the north just as the captive had promised: the death of men like lambs to the slaughter. The fool Chancellor believed himself to be a prophet. As if the devil promoted his henchmen.